


She Talks to Angels

by 8thCyn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: #endofS12, Angels, Black Crowes song, Castiel is Called Clarence, Demons, Fluff, I love Jack but he's not in this story, Post-Season 12, Season/Series 12, WinchesterChristmas, diverges from S13, no Jack, post-Episode S12e22 Who We Are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8thCyn/pseuds/8thCyn
Summary: Cas comes to Sam and Dean to ask for their help rescuing a girl with the ability to hear angels' true voices and see their true forms, after she has been kidnapped by a group of rogue demons.And then what do you do with a woman who's wanted by all of the angels AND the demons, and no one knows why?*takes place after the end of "The Code" (approx after S12 ep22)*





	1. Chapter 1

In the side of a hill near Lebanon, Kansas, at the geographic center of the United States of America, there is a door. It looks like it belongs to an electrical transformer building, or maybe a door to an abandoned “dugout” house from pioneer days. Or perhaps even a hobbit hole. It sits on a side road, where cars rarely go.

In short, few people would ever see that door, much less bother to see what lay inside. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to. There are only two human beings still alive who know how to get through that door.

But if anyone else did get through they would be astonished at what they found. For inside that hobbit hole of a door lies the world’s greatest collection of supernatural lore, spell books, exotic (and sometimes deadly) ingredients, magical objects and weapons, and documentation of supernatural creatures, demon possessions, experimental cures for all manner of supernatural afflictions and curses, and everything else imaginable - and sometimes unimaginable.

The collection is housed inside of an underground fortress, with electricity that seems to generate from nowhere, antique but still sophisticated computer systems that take up entire rooms, and a garage full of once brand-new vehicles that are now mint-condition classics. In the past few years a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala has shared the garage with its original occupants. When it isn’t on the road, that is.

There are rooms and rooms full of files and boxes, all meticulously cataloged in the main library area of the bunker. There is also a hidden room which serves as a type of dungeon, with extra warding against demons, and more recently, angels.

There is a full, albeit slightly industrial and dated kitchen. Behind that are several hallways full of bedrooms - utilitarian for the most part, but two of them have been made slightly more comfortable and homey enough for their occupants.

The bunker was built by the Men of Letters to be their central base of operations. They had several chapter houses located throughout the country, but this fortress was to be their crowning achievement, and for over twenty years it was. It was a place for surveillance, and teams took turns living there for months at a time, watching for signs of supernatural activity, and cataloging any new discoveries.

Then in 1958, everything changed. All of the Men of Letters had gathered at the chapter house in Illinois for an investiture ceremony for two legacies who had recently completed their apprenticeship. Unbeknown to them though, one of the apprentices had been possessed, not just by a demon, but by a Knight of Hell, who seized the opportunity to have them all together and massacred the entire organization in one fiery night. 

And for the next fifty-five years, the bunker lay abandoned in the hillside, behind the door.

In more recent years, it has been home to Sam and Dean Winchester, two Men of Letters legacies who grew up trained as hunters, knowing nothing of the organization’s existence, much less their family’s storied past within it. It gave them a place to call their own for the first time since the night of November 2, 1983. For them, that night was the equivalent of the Men of Letters massacre: it was the destruction of their family.

For Sam and Dean, the bunker has provided a home base, a place of respite from cheap motel rooms, abandoned houses, and remote hunting cabins that could barely even be classified as “rustic.” It gave them a badly needed place to feel safe from all of the darkness of the world. So when it was breached by another arm of the Men of Letters organization, this one from Britain, and they found themselves under a microscope, and then under attack, it felt like they would never feel secure in their home again.

But now that the British are no longer a threat, the boys are slowly settling back into a routine. For once, there is no “big bad” threat nipping at their heels. They go on an occasional job when something comes up, but for the first time in many years they are allowing themselves to rest. They watch Netflix and eat popcorn. They surf the internet. Dean even helps out a local mechanic now and then with overflow work, and Sam has been taking some part-time university classes online. It gets a bit boring at times, because they’re used to being in near-constant motion, and it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep it up long-term, but for now, it’s a nice change of pace.

 

* * *

One thing Dean never thought he would ever be able to say is that his best friend was an angel. Truthfully he’d never thought he would ever be able to say he even had a best friend at all. Growing up, he didn’t stay in one place long enough for that, and the tradition had carried on into adulthood. So to have a best friend at all was weird - having that role filled by a celestial being was another whole realm of weird.

But Castiel - whether he’d only been following orders from above or not - had been the one to save him from Hell. And he helped Dean and Sam to avoid their “fate” as archangel vessels giving each other - and the rest of the world - a heavenly pummeling. He had time and time again dropped everything he was doing to fly - sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally - to their sides and help. The bad times were undoubtedly horrific, but one thing he could say about Cas now was that everything he did, he did with the best of intentions.

Castiel was family.

Although he had - at Dean’s insistence - chosen a bedroom for himself at the bunker, he hadn’t done anything to personalize it. After all, angels didn’t sleep, so there really wasn’t any reason for him to have a bedroom. But it made Dean happy, so he went along with it. Recently Dean had snuck in a framed photo of the three of them that Charlie had taken one of the last time the four of them had been together. Cas had found it and put in on the nightstand beside the bed, which made Dean even happier. And even though Cas still wasn't great at human emotions, he was pretty sure that made him happy, too.

“You heard from Cas lately?” Sam asked Dean one day after Dean had come back from picking up an extra shift at the garage.

Even though Cas didn’t have much to do with Heaven anymore, he still came and went on a frequent non-schedule schedule, as someone they’d once known used to say. Even without wings to allow him to pop in and out the way he’d used to, he still appeared and disappeared without much warning. It bugged Dean, but Sam was used to it, and rarely got his feathers ruffled over it.

“No,” Dean answered. He walked over to the fridge, opened it, stared inside for a few seconds, and then closed it again. “Where’s the beer?” he asked, looking grumpier than usual.

“I told you we were out. I thought you were going to get some on your way back.”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed together. “No you didn’t tell me. Or else I would have beer with me. And I don’t.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re just getting forgetful in your old age.”

“Screw off. You’re… in your old age,” Dean said, pouting. “And your hair is ridiculous, too,” he added for good measure.

“Good one,” Sam answered dryly.

Dean opened the fridge again, and pulled out a soda with a loud sigh. He popped the top, chugged it back, and stared at the can. “Yeah, this isn’t going to work for me,” he said, tossing the can in the garbage.

“Recycling…” Sam started to say, but Dean was already halfway back to the door. “Are you going back into town?” he asked.

“I can’t live like this,” Dean said in response. “I need beer.”

But just before he reached the stairs to the main exit, Cas appeared in the doorway.

“Dean. Sam.” He nodded at each of them in turn.

“Cas! Where’ve you been, man?” Sam asked, walking out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.

“I’ve been on a mission,” Cas answered, starting down the stairs. “I need your help. Can we sit?”

“Of course, yeah,” Sam answered. Dean still hadn’t said anything. He walked with Sam back to the map table, but was obviously sulking.

Castiel regarded Dean with curiosity. “Dean, is something wrong?” he asked.

“It’s fine.”

Sam cleared his throat. He was used to apologizing for his brother’s abruptness, but it never became less awkward. Especially when the apology was directed at an angel with little to no awareness of human social clues. “I think what Dean is trying to say is that we just wish you’d check in a bit more often. You’re family, and we worry.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Dean snapped, sounding like a spoiled child. Then after a moment he mumbled, “But yeah, what he said.”

Tilting his head and pursing his lips, Cas said, “I’m very sorry, Dean. Sometimes I forget how you worry. It’s not something I’m used to.”

“You’ve known us for nearly ten years, Cas,” Dean said.

Cas chuckled a little bit. “Maybe so, but I was alive for millennia before that. Ten years is a blink of an eye to me.”

“Oh, you’re not going to start that whole ‘I’m older and wiser than you’ thing again, are you?” Dean asked, obviously looking for an argument.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Okay, enough! Cas, just check in every few days, that’s all we ask, okay? Dean, stop being a dick. Now, you said you needed our help?”

Cas nodded. “It’s a rescue operation. The building is warded.”

Dean leaned back in his chair and looked over at Sam for a moment before turning back to Cas. “Demon or human?” he asked. “And who are you rescuing?”

“It’s a long story…” Cas started to say. When he saw the look on Dean’s face he sighed. “It’s a group of demons, and they’re holding a human girl… well, a woman now. We’ve been looking for her for a long time, but every time we came close they moved her somewhere else.”

“Why didn’t you just tell Crowley to let her go? Who is this girl, anyway?” Sam asked. “I don’t remember you ever talking about this before.”

Dean had already pulled out his cell phone and was about to call Crowley when Cas put a hand out to stop him. “It’s not Crowley. He actually did try to help at one point. Not for the girl’s sake, of course, but because it’s a group of rogue operatives. He doesn’t exactly like it when his subjects aren’t falling in line. But he could never locate them, either. The spell work they were using to hide themselves was too strong.”

“So why do they want her?” Dean asked.

Cas shook his head and stood up from the table. “I’m afraid that’s a very long story, and there just isn’t time right now, but I promise you both that I will explain once we have Lucy safe.” He paused for a moment, deep in thought. “I made a promise to her, and I wasn’t able to keep it. I need to make this right.”

Sam stood up; Dean joined him seconds later. When it came down to it, no matter what, they wanted to make a difference, and they wanted to help. Castiel didn’t often ask for their help: his angel pride made him think he could do just about anything on his own. So if there was a girl out there that Cas was this worried about, they were going to do anything they could to help her. 

“Okay, be ready in five,” Dean said, and he left for his bedroom to gather up some things for the trip.

 

* * *

“Cas, we’ve got at least a six hour drive ahead, you think that’s enough time to let us know what the hell is going on?” Dean asked from behind the wheel of the Impala.

“Who is this Lucy? And why have you never mentioned her before?” Sam asked.

Castiel sighed. “It’s been a long time - far too long. We thought she had somehow been lost to us for good. Lucy is… special, that’s why the demons wanted her.”

“Could you be a little more vague?” Dean asked irritably. Sam glanced over at him, but didn’t say anything.

Cas leaned forward to ask Sam directly: “That was sarcasm, wasn’t it?”

“Yes Cas,” Sam replied, trying not to chuckle.

“What do you mean she’s special? Why? Just spit it out, would you?”

Cas didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked out the window at the scenery rushing past as they crossed the border into Nebraska. “Do you remember when we first met?” he asked Dean.

“How could I forget? You nearly exploded my head trying to talk to me,” Dean answered, but he cracked a small smile at the memory.

“And do you remember what I told you, about how some very special people could hear my true voice, and see my true form?”

“Yeah…”

Picking a piece of lint off of his ever-present trench coat, Cas continued. “Lucy is one of those people.”

“So she’s what? A fallen angel like Anna or something? A prophet?”

“Even prophets can’t hear my true voice, or see my true form,” Cas answered with a shake of his head. “And she isn’t an angel. She’s human. Completely and utterly human. But she’s had this ability from the day of her birth, and none of us know why.” 

He went back to staring out the window again. No one said anything at all. Sam and Dean were too busy trying to process this information. 

“We always knew we had to protect her, a group of us used to take turns watching over her. She was… amazing. But later on, as she got older, her family began to question her mental health. She had always told them about her angels, and when she was younger they chalked it up to imaginary friends. But when she got to be a teenager they insisted on counseling, and then… it got worse,” Cas said sadly. “She got angry, blamed us for it all, and told us to go away, that she didn’t want to see us anymore. She was so angry, we thought she might hurt herself, and… we let go. But that meant we couldn’t protect her the way we always had, and that was when…” his voice trailed off.

“How long has she been missing?” Sam asked.

“Eight years,” Cas answered. “She was kidnapped right when…”

“When you rescued me from Hell,” Dean finished. He didn’t know how he knew, he just did.

“Yes,” Cas said.

The car was silent. Dean reached over and turned on the stereo, letting AC/DC blast through the speakers. Deep in thought, he pushed down on the accelerator, focusing on the road ahead.


	2. Chapter 2

“The building is heavily warded. If you can manage to break the warding, I can get inside and get Lucy. That will be safer than if you attempt a rescue on your own,” Cas explained as the three of them sat in the Impala, on a hill overlooking the house where the girl was being held. From that far away it looked like a picturesque little farm house that should be on a package of cookies, not the hideout for a group of demons holding an angel-seeing woman hostage.

“We should go with you,” Dean insisted. “We’ll break the warding, but you shouldn’t go in on your own to deal with the demons.”

Cas raised an eyebrow at Dean. Even Sam turned to him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You do realize who you’re talking to, right?” Sam asked him.

Cas gave him a sarcastic wave. “Hi, Angel of the Lord here: Castiel is my name, smiting demons is my…”

“Don’t say it,” Dean said with a shake of his head.

With a shrug, Cas continued. “Besides, she won’t know who you are, and she may panic if you two come barging in. She knows me.”

“All right,” Dean grumbled. “So how much warding are we talking about? And where?”

“There’s one on each side of each corner of the house to begin with,” Cas told him. “Then there’s one on each door and window into the house.”

Sam glanced over at Dean. “Is that all?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked upwards towards the second storey windows and the attic, which had another window.

“I believe so. I won’t know until you’re done,” Castiel replied, completely missing the sarcasm.

Turning to Cas, Sam asked, “Are you sure it wouldn’t be easier for us to just go in and get her? How are we going to break the warding on all of those upstairs windows without going inside? And if we go inside, we’re probably going to have to deal with the demons anyway. I know what you’re saying about her not knowing us, but I think you need to be realistic here.”

Cas heaved a great sigh and turned his attention back to the house. He stared wistfully at it. “It should be me going in,” he said, his voice sounding a million miles away. “I let her down.”

Dean clapped a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Listen to me: we’re going to get her back. They’ve kept her alive this long, she’ll be all right. Just wait here and in a few minutes drive the car down closer so that we can get away faster.”

“You trust me to drive your car?” Cas asked, astonished. Even Sam looked confused; it was hard enough to get Dean to allow his brother to drive, much less an angel who still had a bad habit of running out of gas in the succession of crap vehicles he’d driven since losing his ability to zap around at will.

“Only long enough to get us out of there,” Dean answered sternly. “Then you shove your celestial butt over and get out of my spot, got it?”

“Got it,” Cas answered. “But please: Sam, Dean… take good care of Lucy. She’s very special.”

Giving the angel the sympathetic puppy look that only he could give, Sam said, “We’ll take care of her, Cas. We promise.”

 *     *     *

They crept up to the house, moving around the outside, crouched low below the windows. Dean approached the corner of the house nearest the back door and carefully peered around, then nodded to Sam that all was clear. The very fact that so far they hadn’t seen anyone at all was making him concerned. Nervous energy flowed through his limbs as he clutched the demon knife in his hand; he was almost vibrating from it.

Quietly they turned the corner and took off for the door at a near run before coming a skidding halt at the bottom of the stairs. A demon wearing what appeared to be a middle-aged nurse’s meat suit stood at the top of the steps, looking down at them. “Winchesters,” she said in disgust, before letting out a scream of pain as Sam let loose on her with one of the newer tools in their arsenal: a super soaker water gun filled with holy water.

Dean took off up the stairs at lightning speed and jammed the demon knife between her ribs. “See you later, Nurse Ratchett,” he muttered.

There was no going back now. Anyone else inside would already know they were there. Sam slammed through the door as Dean yanked his arm back to remove the knife from the dead demon and went inside after him. Two more demons - one who looked like a bald tax accountant with a significant paunch in his midsection and one who looked like a male stripper dressed as a cop - came barreling down from the upper level; Sam managed to spray them just before the bald one lifted a hand to more than likely slam them into the wall behind. Dean rushed the stripper and thrust the knife in as hard as he could. Sam quickly switched the water gun to his other hand and pulled out an angel blade Cas had given him, sticking it into the accountant.

The house was quiet now. There was no sound of running footsteps, no screaming, nothing at all to indicate that anyone else - demon or human - was still inside. Dean turned to Sam. “Let’s take a look upstairs,” he said quietly.

The old stairs creaked underneath their feet, but still nothing happened as they climbed. No sounds from above or below. But the first thing they saw as they reached the top was a huge, muscle-bound biker-type guy with spiky orange hair and a rod through his nose. Sam blasted the holy water at him; it hit its target and the big demon screamed in agony. But he backed away slowly, his eyes wide with fear, and smoked out of the meat suit, which crumpled to the floor. It appeared to have been dead for some time.

They carefully checked each of the rooms on the second floor, but found no more signs of humans or demons, save for the overpowering stench of sulphur. The house was dirty and shabby, and with every step it seemed as if they might fall right through the floor.

“Basement or attic?” Dean asked.

“Do you even see the entrance to the attic anywhere?” Sam asked. “Maybe it’s not worth checking.”

“An old house like this? There’s an attic. And they wouldn’t bother putting in a window unless it was at least partially usable.”

There wasn’t time to debate, so they started looking for an entrance. Nothing in the hallway looked at all like a possibility, either in the walls or the ceiling, so they started going back through the bedrooms, and finally found a door hidden inside the closet of one room.

Heart pounding, Sam started up the stairs. The water gun already felt considerably lighter than it had when they’d started, and he could hear what was left of the holy water sloshing around inside it as he climbed. As he reached the top of the stairs he looked around the dim space; the only light came from the small window they’d observed from outside. Everything was quiet, but he noticed immediately the sound of a fan softly whirring somewhere in the vicinity. Dean followed closely behind as they made their way across the main open area; he pointed at a door almost hidden by dusty boxes and piles of newspapers. The fan sound was most definitely coming from behind the door.

Dean took a deep breath, nodded, and steadied himself as Sam tried the door; it opened without any hesitation.

The hinges creaked and Sam cringed. He rounded the doorway into the room and looked around. No one came out to attack. What he saw was a young-looking woman with auburn-colored curls sitting hunched on a dirty mattress in the opposite corner of the room. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her suspicious eyes peered out from behind, the only part of her face that was visible.

“Lucy?” Sam asked uncertainly. They hadn’t even thought to ask Cas what she looked like, or how old she was. This girl looked young, but it was hard to tell. She was dressed in a dirty tank top that was possibly yellow at some point, and a pair of red jogging shorts. Her feet were bare.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered. Her voice was hoarse and tired. She rested her forehead on top of her knees. “Just go away.”

Dean cautiously took a step forward. “We aren’t here to hurt you,” he said. “We’re trying to find Lucy Sullivan, and we just want to know if that’s you.” She didn’t react with any sort of recognition to the name.

“Castiel sent us,” Sam finally added.

At this her head shot up. “Don’t you talk about Castiel!” she snapped. “Just shut up about him!” She grabbed a book sitting on the mattress beside her and threw it as hard as she could at him. It didn’t reach anywhere near them, but it shocked them both nonetheless.

No one said anything for a moment. The fan continued to whirr quietly from a corner of the room. “We aren’t demons, Lucy,” Sam said, attempting a soothing tone.

“Of course you aren’t,” she replied before he could say anything else. “And neither were the last 200 or so meat suits that have said that very same thing to me.”

“Look, I know you’ve probably been through a lot, but we haven’t got time to convince you right now. If I was a demon I wouldn’t be able to say ‘Christos’ now would I?” Dean asked her impatiently.

She narrowed her eyes. “No…” she said, but she was far from convinced.

“And here…” He took the super soaker from Sam’s hands. “If he was a demon, I wouldn’t be able to do this with holy water, would I?” And he shot Sam in the face.

Sam wiped the holy water from his face with a scowl. “Thanks a lot,” he said.

“How do I know that’s holy water?”

“Follow us, and if we run into any actual demons you’ll see soon enough,” Sam answered.

Her gaze went from Sam to Dean, and back to Sam again and then she sighed. “What the hell,” she said finally. “It’s getting boring here anyway. Why not have someone new to torment me?”

She uncurled her body, and tried to get up, but flinched when she tried to put any weight on her left leg. The Winchesters both noticed right away how painfully thin she was. Sam approached her carefully. “Let me help you, okay?” he asked. “That looks pretty painful, and I’m guessing you can’t tell us how many more demons are likely around, so just to be sure we should probably get the hell out of here.”

“There’s eight,” she answered promptly. “So six more if you’re two of them.”

“Well we’re not,” Dean told her, getting impatient. “And we’ve already killed three and one smoked out, so there’s still another four around somewhere. Which means we need to get the fuck out of here.”

Sam swept her off her feet with one quick movement. “Here,” he said, and awkwardly handed her the water gun. “Shoot anything that gets in our way. Dean will take care of the rest.”

Dean glanced down the stairs, then turned back to Sam and Lucy. “You ready?” he asked.

“Let’s go.”

They made their way down the stairs and through the closet into the bedroom, then out into the hallway. Despite her pretense of bravado, Sam could feel Lucy shaking in his arms. Dean put a hand out to stop them, and immediately Sam heard voices downstairs. They backed into the bedroom beside the one they had just left.

“What are we going to do?” Sam hissed.

Dean turned to look at him, but instead focused on the window.

“Dude, no!” Sam said, immediately knowing what his brother was thinking. “If it was just us, sure, but how are we going to… you know…” he nodded his head towards the girl in his arms.

“I’m right here,” Lucy said irritably. “And I’m not deaf. If you don’t think you can get out with me, just leave me. It’s not like I’m any worse off than I was five minutes ago.”

“We’re not leaving you here,” Sam said, giving her a pointed look. “You’re the whole reason we’re here in the first place. And look, Castiel is waiting just outside. He…”

“I told you, I don’t want to hear your lies about Castiel. Do whatever you’re going to do to me. I doubt it’ll be anything new, but just shut up about that.”

“Okay, whatever, but Sam just look out the window, would you?” Dean said.

Sam walked over and looked out: there was a sloped roof under the window. He saw immediately what Dean intended, and Dean gave him a grin showing how pleased he was with himself for thinking of it.

Dean tried the window. It was sticking, and at first he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get it open without making a loud noise, but he gave it a gentle thud and after that it slid open. He climbed out on to the roof while Sam kept watch. “I’m going to jump down,” Dean whispered back to his brother. “You’re going to have to pass her down to me somehow, then come down after her.”

Sam nodded, but Lucy’s eyes widened. “Pass me down?” she asked, her voice shrill.

“Shh. I’m not going to let you get hurt, okay? Just trust me.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I think I’ve made it very clear that I don’t trust you.”

“You are nothing like what Cas described,” he said. “Look, let’s just get the hell out of here, okay?”

She didn’t protest, and even if she had Sam probably still would have climbed out of the window. Dean was already down on the ground. “I’m going to lower you down as far as I can,” he told her as he approached the edge of the roof.

“Just put me down. I can do it myself,” she replied, wiggling out of his arms.

He could have held on to her, but it was quieter to let her do what she wanted. They were so close to getting away. “Be careful,” he said as she sat down and edged herself closer to the drop.

“Jump,” Dean whispered up. “I’ll catch you.”

Surprisingly she nodded, took a deep breath and shoved herself off the roof. Sam heard an “oomph” as Dean caught her, but he managed to stay on his feet. He carefully set her down while Sam lowered himself over the side and dropped down.

“Let’s get going,” Dean said, pointing towards the black blur in the distance that he knew was the waiting Impala. He turned to pick Lucy up.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said a voice, and immediately Dean was thrown backwards.

He fought to stay upright so that he wouldn’t fall back and hit his head; he couldn’t protect himself, much less Lucy, if he was unconscious. Lucy froze for only a moment, then shot a long stream of holy water at the lurking demon with the water gun.

The demon - who appeared to be wearing a long-legged postal worker - let out a primal howl as the holy water sizzled on its meat suit’s skin. “Christos!” she yelled, and the demon visibly shook. “Christos! Christos! Christos! Christos!”

“Shut up!” it growled.

She shot it with more of the holy water, and Sam took the opportunity to lunge forward and stab the angel blade into its rib cage. Dean, who had gotten to his feet, grabbed up Lucy and he and Sam took off, running as quickly as they could towards the car.

Lucy looked up at Dean, who was noticeably slowing down and slightly out of breath as they got closer to the Impala. “I guess you weren’t lying about the holy water,” she said.

Seeing that they had reached safety, Dean slowed to a walk for the last few strides, and opened the door to the backseat before lowering her down. She slid inside. Castiel moved across out of the driver’s seat and allowed Dean to get behind the wheel while Sam got into the back seat beside Lucy and within seconds they were skidding out on to the road and headed back home.

Cas immediately turned back to face Lucy, wearing a pained expression. “I am so sorry, Lucy,” he said. “There are no words.”

Lucy stared at him - stared _through_ him. “Castiel?” she asked in amazement. “Why are you wearing an alcoholic accountant?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Jimmy doesn’t - didn’t - have a drinking problem,” Castiel protested with a solemn face. “And he worked in sales; he wasn’t an accountant.”

Dean rolled his eyes at Sam through the rear view mirror. “I don’t think that’s what she meant, Cas,” he said.

“Why are you wearing a meat suit? That’s all I wanted to know,” Lucy explained. She was still staring at Cas as though he was a ghost with two heads.

“I’m not wearing a… oh…” he said as realization dawned on him. Lucy had never seen him in anything other than his true form before. To her, only demons possessed human bodies. “This is a vessel. His name is - was - Jimmy Novak. He was a very spiritual man who allowed me to possess his body. Unlike demons, angels don’t - can’t - possess a human without permission.”

Lucy didn’t say anything, just kept staring, so Castiel continued. “You remember that most humans can’t handle seeing angels in their true physical form, or hearing our true voices?”

“How could I forget?” she asked. Her voice was bitter and her words were clipped. “Barbetos and his band of merry douchebags never let a day go by without reminding me.”

“Barbetos?” Sam asked.

“He was the leader of the group that kidnapped Lucy,” Castiel answered. “A very high-ranking demon, but no one had heard from him in centuries, according to Crowley. They assumed he was dead until one of his minions bragged to one of Crowley’s about having Lucy.”

“High-ranking, and just generally a jackass,” Lucy added.

A billboard advertising a diner appeared on the side of the road as they drove. Dean glanced back at Lucy. “You hungry? You look like it’s been a while since you’ve had a decent meal.”

“You have no idea,” Lucy answered. “But I’m not exactly dressed for dining out.”

“Takeout it is,” Dean said. “And while Sam and I get the food, Cas can take a look at whatever is wrong with that ankle of yours.”

“No.” Her voice was sharp and bitter. “It’s fine. I don’t need any help.”

“But I can…” Cas started to say.

“I said no. I don’t want any help from you. Seriously, just take me to my family and leave me alone. Or drop me off at a bus station for that matter. I don’t care.” She turned and stared out the window, but not before Sam saw a tear start to trickle down one cheek.

Castiel’s eyes widened; he looked panicked. “What is it?” Dean asked him under his breath. Cas subtly shook his head and Dean got his answer. “Okay look: we have a long drive back to the bunker. I don’t know what happened between you and Cas, but we are going to get some food and get back on the road, and maybe we can all get along and make this drive a little more pleasant?”

“Whatever,” she muttered.

“Oh this is going to be fun,” Dean said with a sigh as he pushed down harder on the accelerator.

* * *

After she’d wolfed down the food Dean brought her, Lucy fell fast asleep in the backseat as the Impala raced on towards home. Castiel had offered to switch places with Sam, to let him stretch his legs in the front seat but she had threatened to get out of the car and walk if Cas tried to sit with her.

Sam and Dean were confused by her reaction. “Cas, I thought you guys were close,” Sam asked once Lucy was safely asleep.

“We were,” he answered, staring straight ahead at the road.

Dean turned his head to the side. “Then why doesn’t she want anything to do with you?” 

“I don’t know. I suppose because I promised to keep her safe, and instead she was kidnapped and her entire family was slaughtered,” he answered, dripping with sarcasm he’d only learned how to use properly in the years since he’d met the Winchesters.

Sam gave a furtive look over at Lucy on the seat beside him, but she was still sleeping peacefully. “Cas: tact,” he whispered sharply. 

Castiel shook his head. “I deserve her anger. I should have expected it.”

“You’re going to have to tell her,” Dean told him. “She’s going to want to know why we aren’t taking her home like she asked.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh.

Sam cleared his throat and gave another quick glance to his left side. “So we take her back to the bunker with us, and then what?” he asked.

“I don’t know, all right?” Castiel snapped. “The truth is, she will never be safe. If we aren’t watching out for her, the same thing will just keep happening again, and again, and again. And I can’t let that happen.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“I know she’s abrasive, and angry, but she wasn’t always like this. You should have known her when she was a child. She was… delightful. Sweet, funny, caring, and so smart. Charlie always reminded me a little bit of what I expected Lucy to be like as an adult.”

Dean flinched noticeably at the mention of Charlie, but didn’t say anything.

“I should never have left her alone. We shouldn’t have,” Cas corrected himself. “We should have just told her not to talk about us, and only to talk to us when she was certain no one else was around.”

“Wait a second,” Dean said. “When you tried to talk to me without your vessel, glass shattered, and things broke, and the noise was earsplitting. Even if it didn’t sound like that to her, how was it that her whole house wasn’t destroyed every time you had a conversation?”

“They broke my bedroom window on more than one occasion.”

Dean’s eyes, and Castiel and Sam’s heads turned in the direction of Lucy’s voice. “You’re awake,” Cas said.

“Perceptive as always,” she replied, but she didn’t sound quite as angry as before.

_How long have you been awake?_ they all wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“My parents blamed me for being careless,” she continued. “I used to get punished for it. But the worst was that they would get angry at me because they thought I was lying about how it got broken.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Castiel said. “We learned how to manipulate our voices eventually, so that you could hear us, but we weren’t going to cause problems. But some of my brothers and sisters didn’t visit often, and they didn’t realize.”

“I didn’t even care, not at first. It was worth it. Until it wasn’t.”

No one knew what to say to that, so they drove on in awkward silence.

* * *

It was late in the evening, and pitch dark when they got back to the bunker. Sam helped Lucy inside. He seemed to be the only one with whom she was slightly less abrasive. “What _is_ this place?” she asked in astonishment, looking around despite the grimace she made with every step she took. 

“It was a bunker for the Men of Letters a long time ago, but now it’s home,” he explained, adding, “We’re legacies.”

“Men of Letters? What kind of sexual deviant society is that?”

He showed her to one of the extra bedrooms just down the hall from his and Dean’s; she hadn’t allowed him to carry her now that they weren’t in danger of being caught because she had to limp along slowly. “It’s not… it was a secret society, dedicated to collecting supernatural lore, and researching new and innovative ways to defeat threats. Or cure them, if possible. The American group was basically obliterated in the 1950s, so now… we’re it.”

“How were they obliterated?” she asked as Sam opened the door to her room.

“It was a kni…” he started to say, and then stopped when he realized what he was about to tell her. “There was a fire.” 

She hobbled over to the bed and sat down, curling her injured leg up on the bed. Her face was white from pain, and the exertion of getting all the way there from the garage.

“Can I ask you something?” Sam asked. He was still standing near the doorway, not wanting to push too hard.

“What?” she asked.

“Your leg, why won’t you just let Cas heal it? I mean, it’s one of the perks of having an angel around. You wouldn’t believe all the times Castiel has fixed us up.”

“Yes I would,” she answered, and then she took a deep breath before continuing. “Do you know I was never sick as a kid? I don’t mean I was a healthy kid: I mean I was never sick. If I ever got so much as a sniffle, one of them would fix it right up. Until they were gone, I had never had the stomach flu, or an ear infection, not even a scraped knee.”

“Sounds pretty good,” Sam replied. He took a few tentative steps into the room. “So why not let him fix it now?”

“They fixed all of that, they never let anything happen to me, but I would give that all back, have every childhood illness known to man if I could get the last eight years of my life back. When I needed them most, they weren’t there. I’ll keep the busted ankle, thanks.”

He walked over and sat carefully down on the bed beside her. “Well at least let me take a look at it? I’m pretty good at first aid. I can fix it up the old-fashioned way.”

Tentatively, she stretched out her leg and Sam looked her in the eye as he took it in his hands. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. You’re safe now.”

She nodded, and closed her eyes as he gently pressed down on the most swollen areas, then rotated it. “Can you push against my hand?” he asked, and she did, although her face screwed up in pain as she did.

“I thought you said this wasn’t going to hurt?” she said, a bit breathlessly, but with the first hint of a smile he’d seen.

“Actually I said I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he replied, smiling back. “But the good news is, there’s no break. I think it’s just a bad sprain. I can wrap it up for you, and dig up a pair of crutches to help you get around until it’s better, but maybe you’d like to have a shower or something first?”

Lucy looked down at her dirty clothes, and the smudges of mud and what looked like blood on her legs. “Not exactly ready for the ball, am I?” she said. “But I don’t have anything else to change into, so I might as well just…”

Sam hopped up from the bed. “Hang on, I have an idea,” he said as he darted from the room. 

In a few minutes he came back with a pile of clothes. “These belong to our Mom, but she won’t mind. She’s over in England right now, probably won’t be back for quite a while yet. We can take you to get some things of your own soon - tomorrow if you want - but for now… there’s some sweats here, some t-shirts. I thought that would be okay to sleep in.”

“Thank you,” she said as he dumped the pile onto the desk on one side of the room.

“If you want to grab a few things, I’ll show you where the washroom is, and then leave you to it. You can call me when you’re done and then I’ll get it wrapped up for you.”

She stared at him for a minute, studying his face until he shifted uncomfortably where he stood. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. “Why do you care? You don’t even know me.”

He blushed, and the embarrassment from that made him even more awkward. “Castiel cares about you… a lot. And we trust him. He’s family. So I just take it on faith that you’re worth being nice to. But, the truth is… it’s also just kind of what we do… my brother and me. We help people.”

A look of astonishment crossed her face as if she’d suddenly realized something. “I never even asked your names,” she said. “God, I’ve been a bitch to you.”

Sam chuckled. “We’re kind of used to it. A friend of ours used to say that they never say thank you when you save them. It’s not always true, but what we do, the lives we lead, people are usually far too stunned to think about gratitude. Which is just a really long-winded way of saying that we know you’ve probably been through Hell the past eight years.”

“So… what are your names, anyway?” she asked, after a moment’s contemplation on what he had said.

“I’m Sam. Sam Winchester, and my brother’s name is Dean.”

Lucy’s eyes widened and she sat up a little straighter. “Sam… and Dean?” 

“Yeah…” He raised an eyebrow, startled by her reaction.

A little more insistently: “Winchester?” 

“You sound like you know us,” he said hesitantly. No matter how often he was met with people who knew their names, or even weirder had heard - or read - stories about them, it was always disconcerting.

“I thought you were just stories. Sorry, I mean I thought you were made up,” she said, flustered.

He closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a long breath. “You’ve read the books?” he asked.

“What books?”

“The _Supernatural_ books by Carver Edlund? Isn’t that what you were talking about?”

“I’ve never even heard of those,” she said, swinging her legs back around to put her feet on the floor, and wincing as she put pressure on her injured ankle. “No, they used to tell me stories about you, when I was little. Usually when I was having trouble getting to sleep.”

“When you were little? Wait, how old are you?” he asked. The books were weird enough, especially now that they knew the truth about their author, but bedtime stories? When she was a little girl? It was beyond bizarre.

“What’s the date?” she asked.

“October 12th.”

“Then I’m 33,” she answered with a sigh. “My birthday was two weeks ago.”

“Hang on, you’re only two years younger than I am,” he protested. “How could they have told you stories about me and Dean when you were little.”

“They were about you as little boys, how you were then, I guess. I remember my favorite one was always the one about you jumping off the roof, pretending to be a superhero, but you couldn’t fly, because you were Batman,” she said with a chuckle.

Sam blushed again. It was all too weird, and he didn’t want to think about it anymore. Not to mention slightly embarrassing. “Well, it’s late, you must be wanting that shower now,” he said.

“Yeah.” She nodded, and he helped her up so that they could start their slow walk to the bathroom. She gathered up some of the clothes from the top of the desk.

She stopped near the door to the room and looked at him. “Did you really have an imaginary friend until you were twelve?”

“Actually he wasn’t imaginary: he’s a Zanna, and his name is Sully,” he answered.

Lucy shook her head. “I never thought I’d meet anyone whose life was weirder than mine,” she said.

He laughed and held out a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, Sam Winchester. I’m a Taurus and I stopped the Apocalypse.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I need a drink.”

“I think we can take care of that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sam had just fallen asleep when he heard the screams. He started to call for Dean, but then realized that they were far too high-pitched to have come from his brother, and remembered Lucy. He shot out of bed and ran down the hall; Dean’s door opened and he stepped out into the hall brandishing his pistol. But Sam stopped at the doorway, and motioned to Dean that all was okay. Castiel was already in her room, sitting beside her on the bed, whispering words of comfort. She was in the grips of an intense night terror episode, but once the angel was able to calm her slightly he touched his index finger to her forehead, and within seconds she had relaxed into a peaceful sleep.

Castiel stood up from the bed and walked over to where the Winchesters were standing. “She’ll sleep now, but I’m going to stay with her, just in case.” Then he walked back to the desk, took the chair from its place, and brought it beside the bed. Sam and Dean both knew that he would sit quietly the whole night, just waiting. Angels didn’t sleep. It was one of those weird things you just had to get used to when you had one living with you.

Turning away from the scene in the bedroom he headed towards where Dean stood rooted to his spot in the hallway. He continued down towards his own room, and Dean followed. They quietly shut the door behind them, and Sam exhaled the breath he’d been holding without even realizing it. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

“I guess we have to leave it to Cas to decide,” Dean answered, but he sounded uncertain. 

“Is she just going to live here now? What’s she going to do when Cas tells her the truth about her family? He can’t just keep putting it off forever.”

“I know,” Dean answered, sitting down in the chair by the desk. “She might just take off. Cas can’t force her to stay here. That’s not much better than being held captive by the demon douchebag squad.” 

“We’re not quite _that_ bad,” Sam said, “but yeah, just because he can force her to stay here doesn’t mean he should. Besides, it’s a little weird, isn’t it? I mean, we had Mom here…”

“Eileen is here all the time,” Dean pointed out with a smirk.

“That’s different,” Sam said, muttering a little. He still didn’t like talking about his relationship with Eileen. Even after all these months it was still hard to define. And it was different. “We don’t even know Lucy, and Cas is just moving her in here?”

“Look, let’s not overreact just yet. Maybe she has somewhere else she can go, or maybe she just won’t want to stay. I’m sure Cas has some kind of plan. Now, it’s been a long day, and I’m going back to bed. We can talk more with Cas tomorrow - or, today, I guess. But later.”

Without waiting for a response from Sam, Dean got up and left the room. “Get some sleep,” he called over his shoulder.

Sighing, Sam lay down, but it was a long time before he got back to sleep.

 

* * *

When he finally woke up, Dean stumbled into the kitchen and poured a mug of coffee that had been sitting in the pot far too long, heated it in the microwave, dumped it full of sugar and wandered towards the library. He stopped when he saw Cas and Lucy sitting in the little TV area they had recently set up in one corner. Lucy was sobbing, her face buried in Cas’ chest. The angel was whispering to her.

He stopped and took a step back, intending to turn around, when Cas looked up and locked eyes with him. Cas looked so sad; Dean didn’t know whether to leave them alone, or if he should stay and try to help. But, he reminded himself that he had never been any good at the emotional stuff; that was Sam’s department. He gave Castiel a nod, acknowledging that he knew he’d interrupted, and started to walk back to the kitchen.

“Dean!” came Castiel’s voice behind him.

“Damn,” he muttered under his breath before turning back around. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said.

Lucy raised her head, sniffling. “It’s okay. You probably already know anyway, right? Why wouldn’t I be the last to know?”

“Lucy…” Cas said, his voice a mixture of concern and gentle admonishment.

Muffled footsteps behind him told Dean that Sam had now happened upon the scene, too. He was relieved to see Sam walk past him and head for the couch; his brother was better at these emotional scenes than he was, and if Sam was handling it, he didn’t have to. As much as he ragged on Sam about his sensitive side, it certainly came in handy at times.

Sam sat down on the couch beside Lucy, and she turned away from Cas and reached for Sam, who hugged her tightly. Feeling awkward watching them, Dean quietly made his way out of the library and back to the kitchen. He looked into the fridge to see what groceries they had, found a container of takeout Chinese food and mentally calculated how many days it had been there. When he lost count he shoved it back into the fridge.

He found a loaf of bread in the cupboard and a jar of peanut butter with just enough left in it to cover a few pieces of toast. As he waited for the toaster, Sam, Cas and Lucy walked into the kitchen. Lucy’s face was still tear-stained, but she was calm.

The toaster popped, and he saw Lucy look towards it. “Are you hungry?” he asked tentatively.

“Starving,” she admitted.

Dean looked at Sam and Cas. “There isn’t much to eat around here. I guess we need to do some grocery shopping,” he admitted. For the first time since Mary had left the bunker to go help Mick and Ketch reorganize the British Men of Letters organization, he felt slightly embarrassed about the state of their living arrangements. For two bachelor hunters and an angel, the bunker was a palace, but girls usually expected there to be something in the fridge other than moldy chow mein.

“Why don’t I go into town and pick up some breakfast,” suggested Sam. “Then later we can go find some place to get you some clothes and do a decent grocery shopping. We’ll… I don’t know, make a day of it.”

“Sounds good, Sammy. Should we get our nails done, too?” Dean asked sarcastically.

Sam blushed. “Jerk.”

“Bit…” Dean started to say, then realized how it likely would sound and for once he shut his mouth. “All right. Go get some food, then we’ll go to the mall.” He said the word like it gave him a bad taste in his mouth and Sam started to chuckle.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “I know what Dean wants, but what would you like, Lucy?”

She gave him the same confused look that she had the night before when they’d asked her the question about food while they were on the road. “It’s been so long since anyone asked me what I wanted that I don’t even remember how to choose,” she admitted. “I was lucky if they remembered to feed me at all most of the time; they weren’t exactly handing me a menu.”

“Demons aren’t usually noted for their hospitality,” Dean replied. “What kind of things do you like? Choices are pretty limited around here, but are you more bacon and eggs and waffles, or are you a freak like Sam who thinks that kale smoothies are the equivalent of food?”

“What’s kale?” she asked, honestly seeming bewildered. 

“That’s what I always ask,” Dean answered; it just went to show how long she’d been kept away from the rest of the world. It wasn’t as bad as their mother trying to pick up on 33 lost years, but she still had some catching up to do. “Get her some real food,” he told Sam. “And none of that vegan crap you try to pull on me, either.”

Sam rolled his eyes, smiled at Lucy and headed out to get the food.

 

* * *

“You think it’s my size?” Dean asked, holding up a lacy thong in front of himself and jiggling around a bit. 

Sam gave him a disdainful look. “You’re an idiot,” he replied.

It was hard to imagine what the other shoppers must have thought, seeing two big burly hunters standing in the middle of the women’s lingerie department. Sam thought to himself that it was surprising they hadn’t been escorted out of the department store yet.

Tossing the thong back into the bin from which he’d plucked it, Dean asked impatiently, “What time is it?”

Sam looked at his watch. “About five minutes after the last time you asked me.”

“Why do girls take so long at this stuff? I mean, you, me, we go into the store, a few flannels, a few t-shirts, couple of pairs of jeans and we call it good. In, out, boom we’re done. She’s been in here _FOREVER_ …” he grumbled.

“Give her a break,” Sam said. “Besides, no one said you had to come. You could have stayed at the bunker.”

Dean gave a half-grunt, half-snort. “Yeah, you’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? You and Lucy could have gone for afternoon tea and gotten mani-pedis together.”

“God, you are a _child_ ,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

At that moment Lucy emerged from the change room, carrying a much smaller pile of clothing than she’d first gone in with. Dean automatically wiped the grumpy look off his face and stood up straighter. “How’d you do?” he asked, as if he hadn’t just been whining for the past ten minutes about waiting for her.

“All right, I guess. Are you sure this is okay?” She looked doubtfully down at the pile of clothes in her arms.

“Sure, no problem,” Dean replied jovially, wrapping an arm around her thin shoulders. “It’s on Sam, right Sammy?”

Shaking his head at his brother’s swift change of mood, Sam said, “Sure Dean, no problem.” Then he reached for his wallet and pulled out John P. Jones’ Visa card as they walked towards the check out.  
“Where is Castiel?” Lucy asked as they waited for the sales girl to ring everything up.

“He went down to the pet store,” Sam told her. “He keeps trying to convince us we need to get a fish tank for the bunker.”

For the first time he heard Lucy give a genuine laugh. “That sounds like him. He was obsessed with birds when I was a kid.”

Sam almost mentioned Cas’ days wanting to be a beekeeper, but decided that was another story for another time. He paid for the clothes and took the bags before Lucy could reach out for them. “I got it,” he told her when she gave him a puzzled look. “You’ve got enough to manage there with the crutches, you don’t need to be carrying bags, too.”

“Can we go down to the pet store?” she asked tentatively. “I mean, just to meet up with Castiel…”

“Sure,” Sam said, just as Dean started to say, “I don’t know, we really have to…”

“Sure,” Sam repeated. “Are you sure you’re okay to walk that far?”

Giving him a shy smile, she nodded eagerly. “I’ll be fine.”

They made their way slowly through the mall. For all of Dean’s protests that he didn’t want to be there, he kept stopping to stare at different store windows, and Sam nearly had to peel him away when they passed a brightly lit candy store. But finally they arrived at the pet store, where Castiel was still staring at a huge tank of tropical fish.

“Do you think they ever get bored, just swimming around like that?” Lucy asked in a soft voice, coming up behind him.

Cas turned towards her and smiled kindly. “I have it on very good authority that they don’t,” he answered.

“But don’t you think they’d be happier out there in the ocean? Swimming freely? Exploring whatever and wherever they wanted?” she pressed.

“Freedom is important,” Castiel replied. “It isn’t always the most direct route to happiness, but it is still important.” He turned to her and smiled. “Then again, they’re also less likely to be eaten by a shark in this tank.”

Lucy considered this for a moment. “I think it would be worth the risk to them,” she said finally.

“I suppose to some of them it would be,” he answered.

Dean looked at Sam. “I suppose I shouldn’t mention that they have brains the size of dust mites, and they probably don’t even remember where they are by the time they cross from one side of the tank to the other?”

“Probably not.”

Lucy turned at the sound of their voices, but she wasn’t looking at them. Something over Dean’s shoulder obviously caught her attention, and her eyes brightened immediately. It was the first truly happy look they had seen on her face. Hooking her crutches back underneath her armpits she started off towards whatever it was she had seen. Sam, Dean, and Cas all swung around to see where she was going.

“Oh crap,” Dean muttered as he went after her.

They followed her to a sign that said “PET ADOPTIONS”, with windows full of cats of various shades, size, and age. Some were in groups, cuddled up together asleep, and some were in windows on their own. One enormous black cat stared out its window directly at Dean. “What are you looking at?” he muttered, feeling uneasy under its gaze.

Within moments Lucy was chatting away with the adoption attendant, until a minute later he disappeared through a door. They saw him reach inside one of the windows and pull out a long-haired calico with a sour expression.

“Oh crap,” Dean said again, this time a little louder, but Lucy ignored him as she leaned her crutches against the wall and took the offered kitty, snuggling it against her.

“My parents would never let me have a pet when I was growing up. I always swore I was going to have lots of animals once I was out on my own, but I never got the chance,” she said.

Sam stepped forward and stroked the cat’s ears. “I always wanted a dog,” he told her. 

“Probably shouldn’t have hit one with your car then,” Dean said. 

Sam glared at him, then pointed out another one to the attendant, who smiled and went back inside to get it.

 

* * *

“This has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever made me do,” Dean muttered as he drove back towards home. It was about the tenth time he’d said it since they’d left the mall.

But in the backseat, Lucy was beaming, holding a black and white kitten in her arms, a pile of cat supplies on the seat between her and Cas.

“Oh come on, Dean,” Sam said, grinning. “You’re going to love having a pet. So Lucy, what are you going to name her?”

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “I’m just can’t believe that she’s real.”

“You and me both,” Dean said with a sigh.

Lucy’s face lost some of its glow. “Are you sure this is okay with you guys? I don’t mean just the kitten: I mean everything. I won’t stay forever, I promise. I just need to figure out what to do next. You’re both being really kind to me. I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

Sam twisted around to face her. “Lucy, I don’t want you to worry about any of that right now. Neither of us do. You can stay as long as you want. You’ll be safe at the bunker, and we have lots of room.”

She smiled again, but her eyes were sad. “Thank you, Sam,” she said. The kitten gave a big yawn and rolled over on her lap. She laughed quietly and stroked its belly, then closed her eyes. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought.” She yawned and the kitten followed suit.

Cas reached over and gently touched her forehead, and she settled into a peaceful sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

He felt the vibration before he even drifted back into consciousness, and felt a slight weight pressed against his arm. With a start, Dean jolted up in his bed, preparing for a fight.

Even after over five years of living in the bunker, the safest place he’d ever slept, he was still always on edge, even in his sleep. Recent events with invading Brits hadn’t helped, either.

“Dean, is something wrong?”

Dean swung his head in the direction of Cas’ voice. “Cas, what the Hell? You know I hate it when you watch me sleep.”

Cas shrugged. “I know. But Moo wanted in, and I was just…”

“Moo?” Dean asked, but then a sharp stabbing in his right arm caught his attention. His eyes whipped down and he saw the big green eyes of Lucy’s kitten looking up at him. “She named it Moo? Seriously?”

“Because it’s got the same coloring as a cow,” Cas answered, reaching out and stroking the cat’s back.

The kitten head-butted Dean’s arm, purring loudly. “Yeah, I guessed that. Okay, but why is Moo in my bed?”

“She wanted to come and see you. She likes you,” Cas replied, indicating the way the cat was now settling herself down next to Dean, snuggling up to his thigh and yawning.

“Cas, I don’t do cats. You and Sam coerced me into letting it into the bunker, but it doesn’t mean I want it sharing my bed.” Moo let out a tiny mew before gently clawing his arm again. “Ouch! How can something so little have such sharp claws?” He picked up the kitten, held it at eye level, stared at it as it mewed again, then held it out to Cas. “Here, take it.”

“Where should I take her?” he asked, standing up to come and get the cat.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Just get it out of here.”

Cas cuddled the kitten close to his chest, and stroked its ears. “You’ll hurt Moo’s feelings, Dean.”

Dean stood up from the bed, shaking his head in disgust. “So what now, the cat has feelings?”

“Of course, Dean. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Seriously Cas, I don’t want the cat in my room. I’m allergic to them; it’ll make me all sniffly and my eyes will start to water…” He started to sniffle, as if trying to prove his point.

“Why didn’t you say so?” Cas asked, walking over to Dean and pressing a finger to his forehead. “There, all fixed.”

Dean felt the familiar jolt of Cas’ healing powers. “Cas, I’ve told you not to heal me before I’ve had my morning coffee,” he said grumpily.

“Sorry. I’ll go make a fresh pot, then.” And with that, Cas left the room. 

Sitting back down on his bed with a sigh, he turned to lay back down on his pillow for a second, and felt a lump underneath his back. An angry cry accompanied it. He sat back up with a start, and saw Moo staring at him indignantly. “Meow!” said the kitten.

“Meow yourself,” Dean replied, and he got up to go to the shower.

 

* * *

After his shower, Dean felt a little less grumpy, but he still needed a caffeine jolt. Sauntering out to the kitchen to get some coffee he found Sam staring intently at his laptop, a mug of coffee beside him on the table. Lucy sat in the next chair over, idly teasing Moo with a piece of string; a plate bearing the remains of her breakfast sat beside her.

“Real party in here,” he muttered as he reached for his mug in the cupboard. 

Sam grunted a vague response.

“Really? Where are we going to get an elephant, and would that even be legal?” Dean answered, deadpan. Still playing with Moo, Lucy snickered.

Sam gave Dean an irritated glare. “I’m working on a paper here,” he said.

“Oh. Sorry then.” Dean started rifling through cupboards, secretly glad to actually find some food there for once. He rustled around among boxes until he found one that looked appealing, then checked the cupboard over the recently-installed dishwasher for a bowl. There weren’t any, so he looked in the dishwasher, which was full of dirty dishes.

“You know you actually have to turn it on if it’s going to clean the dishes, right?” Sam said without looking up.

“You know you actually have to turn it on,” Dean muttered in high voice, mocking his brother. “Yes, I know you have to turn it on. It’s not like you couldn’t have done it.”

Still staring at the screen, Sam pointed to a piece of paper taped to one of the cupboards. Dean took a few steps closer. “Really?” he asked, squinting at it. “You made a chore chart? What are we, five?”

“Some of us more than others,” Sam answered. “And it was your turn.”

“Fine,” he said in a put-upon voice. He reached in and took out a bowl and spoon and dumped them in the sink, then found the box of dishwasher detergent. “How much of this do you use?” he asked, then shrugged and dumped some in the bottom of the machine.

“Dude!” Sam admonished, finally looking up.

“What?” Dean asked, his shoulders squared defensively.

Lucy had stopped paying attention to Moo and was now laughing hysterically. It was the first time either of them had ever heard her laugh like that, and they stopped and turned towards the sound. Her whole face had lit up; she looked like a completely different person.

“What’s so funny?” Sam asked, although he had been reluctant to interrupt her.

She gave him a wide smile as her laughter subsided a bit. “You two sound like…” she sputtered a bit, laughed some more, then calmed down enough to finish her sentence. “An old married couple!”

Then she burst out laughing again.

Dean’s face went sour. “You know we’re brothers, right?”

Snickering, she asked, “Yeah, but are you really brothers, or is that just some sort of cover?” This time her laughter had her doubled over; Moo batted at her ponytail from her spot on the table.

At that moment, Cas came sauntering into the kitchen. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

Before anyone could answer, strange computerized music started coming from Sam’s laptop.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked, her laughter subsiding as everyone’s attention turned to the computer.

“It’s our Mom,” Sam said, as clicked on the Skype call.

“On there?” Lucy asked.

“You really have been gone a while, haven’t you?” Dean said as he drew up a chair and sat down beside Sam.

“Hey Mom,” said Sam. “How’s things?”

“Going well,” Mary Winchester answered. “We’re really making progress with the new council. Mick seems to have a real knack for working with the new administration we’ve put in place at Kendricks, and Ketch and Durbin have made some headway finally with the new Board members.”

“Sounds good,” Dean said. “But how are you doing?”

Mary blushed. “Oh, well, now that I can actually keep an occasional meal down it’s a little easier. British food and morning sickness just don’t mix.”

Sam and Dean both smiled. Lucy was looking more and more confused. “And how is Ketch with everything?” Sam asked. 

“He’s still looking after you, right? Because if he’s not…” Dean said, warning in his voice.

Mary laughed. “Thanks for being protective, but he’s been great. Very attentive. He’s so excited. I mean, it’s not like he got to be involved last time.” She looked off to the side for a minute. “Oh, speaking of last time, someone wants to say hi to you.” She reached over and picked up a little blonde boy, helping him up on her lap. 

He waved at the camera. “Hi Sam! Hi Dean!” he said excitedly.

“Hi Ollie. How are you?” Sam asked him.

“You get those CDs I sent you?” Dean asked.

“Zeppelin rules!” Ollie said, grinning in response.

“Damn right! Err… I mean, that’s right!” Dean said, catching himself as his mother raised an eyebrow at him.

“You being good for Mary?” Sam asked him.

Ollie smiled and snuggled his face into her shoulder.

“He’s being very good,” Mary answered. “A little angel,” she said with an ironic wink at the boys, who both chuckled.

“So are you coming to visit soon?” Dean asked.

“That’s why I was calling!” Mary answered. “We should be there in a few weeks. Ketch wants to check on the progress the workers are making on the house. I’ll send you details once I know when, okay? But maybe over Christmas? Wouldn’t that be nice, if we could all have a real Christmas together?”

“Will you still be okay to fly by then?” Dean asked, his forehead furrowing.

She laughed. “Yes Dean, it’ll be fine. I’m not due until March.”

Her face was glowing with happiness, and her sons were happy for her, as strange as it was. “Is Mick going to come too?” Sam asked.

“We’ll have to see. He’s pretty determined to keep an eye on things there,” she told him. “But I’m trying to convince him. Will Eileen be coming?” she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Um, we’ll see,” Sam answered, shifting in his seat. Dean snickered. “Shut up,” Sam muttered out the side of his mouth.

Lucy laughed out loud at this, and Mary’s eyes shifted around the screen, trying to see where the sound of female laughter was coming from. She raised an eyebrow at Dean. “Do you have a visitor?” she asked, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

“What?” Dean asked. “No! No, nothing like that! Mom… seriously?”

“Aw come on, Dean, you might as well tell her,” Sam said, trying not to laugh.

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean snapped. “Lucy, come here and say hi to our mother.”

Lucy’s eyes widened, and silently she shook her head, but Dean wasn’t having it, and motioned for her to come over. “I need you to explain to my mother that Cas brought you here, and we aren’t… we weren’t… you’re not… Damn it, just come over here, okay?”

Sam’s whole body shook with laughter.

“I hate you both,” Dean muttered.

 

* * *

They stayed on the call for another hour. Mary had been busy overseas with Ketch and the other remaining British Men of Letters; they didn’t get to talk to her very often. Cas had given her a quick rundown of how Lucy had come to be staying with them, without going into too much detail, but Dean made certain that the angel confirmed there was “no hanky or panky going on.”

“So… that’s… your mom?” Lucy had finally asked after they ended the call. She looked extremely confused.

Sam smiled. “Yeah, why?” he asked, trying not to laugh.

“Can I ask… how old is she?”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to calculate. “Stop before you hurt yourself,” Sam told him. “She’s 64… sort of. It’s a long story.”

“She’s…” Lucy started to say, but fumbled again for words. “Can I get the number of her plastic surgeon?”

“Mary hasn’t had any cosmetic surgery,” Cas said, deadpan, as usual missing the sarcasm.

“Wait, but she was talking about morning sickness!” Lucy protested. “Okay, even for the weird world I live in, this doesn’t make any sense.”

And so they tried to explain about Mary coming back from the dead, which necessitated a conversation about Amara. They somehow managed to stop before they got to the point of “God’s sister.” It was enough for anyone to take in at once.

“It was kind of weird, at first,” Sam admitted. “I mean, our mom is technically kind of younger than we are, and now she’s with this new guy… who…”

“Was a freaking psychopath,” Dean finished for him.

Sam shook his head. “Who we thought was a psychopath, but now… I mean, he has his issues, but I think being with our mom has made a big difference in him. And she’s happy. And now we’ve finally got this kind of weird relationship with her, but it works. She’s not exactly a traditional mom, but she’s family. And she’s amazing.”

Dead nodded. “Yeah, it’s hard sometimes, seeing her with Ollie like that… it’s like looking at her and me thirty-four years ago, but I’m actually happy for her.” He stood up from the table and went back to where he’d left the dirty bowl and spoon still sitting on the counter, washed them out by hand and grabbed a towel that should have already seen a washing machine to dry them off.

“So you’re seriously going to have a new brother or sister in a few months?” Lucy asked, still amazed.

“Looks that way,” Dean replied, pouring cereal into the now sort of clean bowl.

“Wow,” she said wistfully; a look of sadness crossed her face. “It’s been years since I’ve seen my family. I got used to being away from them, but it still doesn’t seem real that they’re actually just… gone.”

Sam reached out and put his big hand on top of hers. He looked over at Dean and Cas. No one seemed to know what to say.

She sniffled a bit, but quickly wiped away the tears that were forming in the corners of her eyes. “It’s okay… it’s okay,” she said, as much for herself as for them. “They’re in a better place now, right?”

Sam glanced at Dean again before turning back to Lucy. “Of course,” he told her, squeezing her hand again.

“Totally,” Dean added.

Moo jumped into her lap and rubbed up against her, purring loudly. She buried her face in the cat’s fur, whispering something which they couldn’t hear. Lifting her head again, she stared off in the distance, not looking at any of them. “What do I do now? With the rest of my life?” she asked quietly.

Again, no one knew what to tell her. The room fell silent, and eventually, awkwardly, Sam went back to working on his paper, and Dean finally got to eat his bowl of cereal when Cas took Lucy to the TV area to explain Netflix to her.

It was a question for another day.


	6. Chapter 6

At the beginning of November, Sam and Dean got called away to a hunt. An acquaintance had been tracking a shapeshifter for several weeks, and now suspected there was a group of them that he wasn’t prepared to handle on his own.

  
“We’ll be fine, Dean,” Castiel told him - again - as the brothers prepared to leave. Lucy had settled in relatively well, and although her emotions directed as Cas still could shift at a moment’s notice, for the most part she was getting along with him.

Dean didn’t look convinced. But as it turned out, it wasn’t Lucy he was worried about.

“Just don’t touch my stuff,” he told Cas.

“I have no interest in your _Busty Asian Beauties_ collection,” he said, adding an eye roll for good measure.

Narrowing his eyes as he reluctantly followed Sam to the garage, he called back, “I’ll know if any of them are missing! And keep that cat out of my room!”

Sam grabbed him by the arm and dragged him off to the car.

“Is he always like that?” Lucy asked as she and Castiel watched the Impala pull out of the enormous garage.

“Quite often,” Castiel answered. “I suppose you get used to it.”

They turned and walked back into the main part of the garage. Lucy could finally walk with no more than a slight limp. It was the first time, in the nearly three weeks that she had been living there, that she had been completely and utterly alone with Castiel, and within moments it became blindingly obvious that neither of them knew what to say or do.

They stood in the kitchen, staring awkwardly at each other. “I think I’m just going to watch some TV,” Lucy said finally, making her way to the couch. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Castiel answered quickly, following her. Her shoulders sagged a bit at this, discouraged by his insistence on staying with her. 

The two of them sat at either end of the couch as Lucy flipped through the guide. Moo slept happily upside-down in her cat bed.

“Have you tried watching Netflix yet?” Castiel asked.

“Netflix? Isn’t that the thing where they mail you DVDs?” Lucy looked confused; Castiel looked every bit as confused by her response.

“No, it’s this thing on the TV… Sam showed it to me. You can watch an entire show, whenever you want. It’s quite ingenious, really… although I don’t like when it asks me if I’m still watching _House of Cards_ … it makes me feel like I’m doing something shameful. It’s not like I’m watching Asian cartoon characters engaging in sexual intercourse.”

“I’m sorry, _what?_ ” Lucy stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly open from shock.

“It’s something that De…” Cas started to say, then stopped. “Here, let me show you.” He gestured for her to hand him the remote, and after she got over the initial shock, she finally handed it to him.

“If you press this button here, it brings up Netflix. Sam and Dean let me have my own profile,” he said, seemingly proud of himself, even though Lucy still didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “You can use my profile for now. I’ll ask them if it’s okay to set one up for you later, if you like.”

“Okay… thanks, I guess…”

“If you use the arrows on the remote you can scroll through each menu, or go to different ones. Or you can go up here…” He scrolled up to the search function. “…and search for a specific show or movie.”

“I don’t know what shows to watch.”

“It can be overwhelming at first… all the choices,” Castiel acknowledged. “But if you look through different options, and select something, you may enjoy it. And if you don’t, you can always turn it off and try something else. You’re never stuck in that choice.”

“Good to know,” Lucy answered. She chuckled a little, and when he offered it, she took the remote back from him and started scrolling through the choices. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Lucy,” Castiel asked. He smiled, happy to think that she was opening up to him.

“Why do we need a new black? And why orange?”

Cas sighed. “It’s a long story. Perhaps we should start with something else. How do you feel about dragons?”

 

* * *

Sam and Dean were gone for nearly three weeks. Lucy and Castiel maintained a calm, if awkward, peace between them, as long as Castiel didn’t try to broach the subject of Lucy’s captivity with Barbetos and his gang, or what had lead up to it. He learned that lesson quickly, the very first night that the two of them were alone in the bunker.

They had marathoned through the first season of _Mad Men_ after Lucy had decided _Game of Thrones_ wasn’t her style, and Castiel sat at the table while she made herself some dinner.

“Lucy?” he said, a cautious note in his voice. After a peaceful day, he regarded her hopefully, thinking that perhaps they could resolve their issues.

“Mmm hmm?” she asked, stirring a pot of soup.

“I was hoping that we could talk… about… everything.” He stuttered a bit, and thought to himself that if he were still human he’d likely be sweating. They were definite advantages to having his grace - even outside of the obvious.

“Everything like what?” She raised an eyebrow as she turned to look at him. 

If he were better at picking up human cues, he would have known then and there that he was treading on dangerous ground, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t. “I mean, what happened… when we left…”

Her eyes flashed in anger. “When you abandoned me, you mean?” she snapped.

Castiel stiffened. “We didn’t abandon you, Lucy… you…”

“I know what happened! And since we’re stuck together for now, I think it’s better if we leave it alone, don’t you?”

“But Lucy, I…”

“No. Stop right now, or I’m getting my stuff and leaving here, and I don’t care who finds me, or what happens to me. Do you understand? I can’t do this with you. Not if we’re going to live here together. It’s bad enough that I’m stuck here, with no possibility of being able to leave. I just want to forget about it. I want to eat my soup, and watch some TV, and forget that I have the rest of my life in front of me, and that as far as I can tell, I have nothing to look forward to except binge watching TV shows about dragons and sleazeball advertising executives.” She angrily wiped away a tear that had betrayed her by trickling down her cheek, and stormed over to the cupboard to get out a bowl for her soup.

“I’m sorry, Lucy.” There was nothing else he could say at that moment. He knew he had already hurt her enough.

 

* * *

They got into the routine of going for afternoon walks outside the bunker, just to get some fresh air, and get away from the television. “I’m going to end up 800 pounds if I don’t get some exercise,” Lucy had said. “And sunlight - remember sunlight? You may not need it, but humans do. And fresh air. And… you’ll be with me, nothing is going to happen.”

Castiel knew she was right, and found that he began to enjoy their time outside. Sometimes they just walked, almost a jog, and sometimes they would stop seemingly every few feet while Lucy explored. She found the outside of the bunker fascinating, how well it was hidden in plain sight. The entrance to the garage had especially piqued her curiosity. Castiel had showed her the door that seemed to come out of the old power plant on top of the hill, although it wasn’t connected to that building at all. She told him not to tell her how the door was opened from the outside, but after two weeks she still hadn’t figured it out. Castiel couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let him show her, but she stubbornly insisted that she would figure it out, and he was just happy that she was enjoying herself.

He wanted to try again to talk to her. Every once in a while he would start to say something, and then he would stop. One look from her and he could tell it would only cause problems. And the truth was, he was enjoying his time alone with her. As long as he didn’t try to start conversations that she didn’t want to have, she was sweet, and kind, and funny. It was like having the old Lucy back again; he didn’t want to jeopardize that.

Sam and Dean would call and check in every few days, until finally they said they were on their way home. Castiel was glad to know his friends were coming back, but sad to think that he was going to lose this precious time alone with Lucy, so reminiscent of the time he’d spent with her as a child. Still, he couldn’t help but smile when he heard the Impala’s engine echoing in the garage, and its heavy doors slam shut.

“Hey!” Dean said by way of greeting. “I’d stop to chat, but I think we’d all appreciate it if I go and have a shower first.”

“I know I would,” Sam replied. Behind Dean’s back he held his nose and waved a hand underneath, grinning.

“You don’t exactly smell like a rose bush, either,” Dean pointed out. “Unless it’s been recently fertilized.” He started to head down the hall to his bedroom. “Dibs on the first shower!” he called over his shoulder.

Castiel noticed Lucy’s grin right away, and it made him happy.

He still remembered the first time he’d heard about her: this human child who could not only hear angels, but see them. Children are often more open to things in the spiritual realm, and sometimes they could even hear angels speaking, but Lucy was different, and word spread quickly among the angels. It had been Zuriel, one of the guardians, to discover it first, when she was only an infant. He had come back to Heaven, vibrating with excitement. 

At first, no one believed him. “I played with her, and she giggled. She could _see_ me, I know it!” he’d insisted. And so a few angels had gone back with him the next time, Castiel included. Some wanted to prove Zuriel wrong, some were just curious to know the truth. Castiel wasn’t quite sure which category he fit in. Back then, he’d still been the warrior of God, leader of his garrison. He had no interest in human children unless they were part of his mission. Yet he’d found himself in the living room of Lucy’s house while she sat in some sort of infant play jail, watching as Zuriel made funny faces at the baby, who would immediately start to giggle.

“What’s so funny, Sweetie?” Lucy’s mother had asked from where she sat on the couch.

Lucy’s father had come in from work shortly afterward. He stared at his child as she laughed and laughed, seemingly at nothing. “What is she laughing at?” he asked his wife.

“It must be angels playing peek-a-boo,” Lucy’s mother had answered, and she had laughed, too, at what she thought was a ridiculous notion.

Castiel had felt a strange sensation, watching Zuriel play with Lucy: a warmth he didn’t understand. He just knew that he didn’t want to leave. He left with the others, but he came back, over and over; sometimes with others, sometimes alone. He always preferred to go alone, though. 

He welcomed that warm feeling; it happened with every visit. He was fascinated, watching her as she grew from an infant to a toddler, learning to walk, and then to talk. Of course, it was when she began to talk that the trouble started. Not right at first: it wasn’t as if “angel” was her first word. In fact, they went to great pains not to mention to her that they were angels at all. She only knew their names. So to her parents, as Lucy grew into her preschool years, she was talking about imaginary friends. Although, not many preschoolers had imaginary friends named Zuriel, Jophiel or Castiel.

Lucy had siblings eventually: a brother and a sister. Neither of them had her abilities. And as they grew older, without strange imaginary friends, without their parents finding them talking to no one, or singing along to some unheard song, it only served to illuminate Lucy’s supposed oddities. They should have known that continuing to visit her would cause problems, but back then, the angels weren’t used to humans, or how they processed information. They weren’t used to the emotional relationship between parents and children.

If they had realized, would they have stopped? They thought they were protecting her; they thought they were doing the right thing. And later on, when she’d been so angry at them, and told them to go, they had thought they were doing the right thing by respecting her wishes.

How wrong they had been.

So to see her smiling, and happy, despite all of the trauma she had been through… it was, well, some would say a gift from God. But to Castiel, it was just a gift.

If only she would accept his apology.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean liked to claim that they “always” had Christmas, but in his heart he knew he hadn’t had a real Christmas since 1982, just before Sam was born. He only had very vague memories of it, but he knew that he’d had his mom, his dad, and his Grandma Millie (the only grandparent he’d known at the time.) There had been a tree, presents, and even a stocking for the new baby brother or sister that was coming. He remembered asking his father if Santa would bring the new baby. Dad’s face had turned bright red and he’d handed Dean a candy cane off the Christmas tree.

But ever since November 2, 1983 Christmas had been a makeshift event for the Winchesters. More of an afterthought, really. Gifts bought at the closest Gas ‘n Sip to whatever motel they were staying at, dinner from Boston Market. Egg nog spiked with hunter’s helper.

Chuck bless him, at least Bobby had always tried to make real Christmases for them. Most years, they had been on the road. Dad had made excuses why they couldn’t go to Bobby’s place for the holidays. As an adult, Dean realized that it was easier for his father to try and forget the holidays were even happening; to pass out drunk on a seedy motel sofa, than to be faced with everything he’d lost. But a few times, John Winchester couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse, and couldn’t say no to his boys’ begging, and they spent December 25th with “Uncle Bobby.” 

It wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell, but compared to other years, it was _Hark the Herald Angels Sing_. There’d be a scraggly tree, stockings dirty with soot, filled with dime store candy and Happy Meal toys. And at least one real present for each of them. Nothing fancy, but still… Bobby always knew the kind of toys they liked. The only gifts they ever got from their father were weapons, and protection totems. There’d be a wild turkey, or a goose that Bobby had hunted. Instant mashed potatoes. Canned gravy. But at least it was cooked, in a kitchen, in a home. 

But even that hadn’t happened since Bobby died. After that, there just hadn’t seemed to be a point.

So when Mary, Ketch, and Ollie arrived, it was like Sam and Dean were experiencing a real Christmas for the very first time. Granted, perhaps Ketch wasn’t exactly who they’d pictured spending the holidays with, but they were warming up to him - slowly. And it was impossible not to love Ollie.

Mary assured them that she’d had Ketch’s housekeeper give her some lessons, and she was totally prepared to make Christmas dinner. Then Ketch assured them (privately, of course), that he had a caterer prepared as backup. She insisted that they all go out together to pick out a tree, and buy decorations, and they even took some time to brave the mall (again!) and buy presents for each other.

Two nights before Christmas, they decided to have a Christmas movie night: _Miracle on 34th Street_ , _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_ for Ollie, and for Dean, _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , which he had still never seen.

“So that’s why Meg kept calling you Clarence all the time?” Dean asked Cas when Henry Travers first came on-screen.

“Who’s Meg?” Mary and Lucy both asked at the same time.

“She’s…” Sam fumbled for the words to explain Meg. 

“Don’t ask,” Dean finished for him.

“Funny, I thought we were watching a movie,” Ketch said drily, raising a sarcastic eyebrow in their direction.

“Shut up, Ketch,” Dean snapped.

“Dean, don’t talk back to your… to my… just don’t talk back!” Mary admonished him.

Dean grumbled in response.

“So weird…” Sam muttered under his breath, but he was half-smiling, at least.

They settled back down to watch the movie. Halfway through, Ollie had passed out cold on Dean’s lap, his face snuggled into Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s left leg had started to cramp up before completely going to sleep on him, but he stayed resolutely in his spot, occasionally resting his chin on the little boy’s head.

Out of all of them, only Sam and Cas knew how much Dean liked kids, and how good he was with them. Even Mary had been hesitant at first about leaving Ollie in Dean’s care, but Ketch’s attitude about it had made her doubly glad that Dean had proven both of them wrong.

_“Dean is a very good hunter, but that’s not exactly the quality one looks for in a role model, is it?”_

_Mary narrowed her eyes at him, and he immediately took a step backwards. Her temper was quick at the best of times, but on pregnancy hormones it was ten times worse. “You could easily replace_

_Dean’s name with your own, and say the exact same thing,” she said._

_He sighed. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But Oliver is my son…”_

_“And Dean is mine!” she snapped._

_“I’m not going to win this one, am I?” he asked._

_“Ollie hasn’t even met Dean in person yet, and he already loves him - and Sam, too,” she pointed out. Any reticence she may have had on her own was immediately washed away by her need to defend her son._

Ketch had known better than to argue, and Mary had taken grim satisfaction in watching the way that Dean and Ollie had been interacting ever since they’d arrived at the bunker.

After the movie ended, Dean carefully stood up, wincing a bit as his leg started to regain feeling and took Ollie down the hall to put him to bed.

“I think I’m done for the night, too,” Mary said with a yawn, holding out a hand for Ketch to help her up. Before she could, though, her hand dropped down to her stomach. “Hey there, little one, Mama needs some sleep. It’s not dance party time.”

Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Is that the baby? It’s moving?” she asked.

Mary smiled and nodded. “He or she likes to pick the worst possible times to get active. Sam was the same way,” she said, looking over to where her younger son was sitting. He blushed.

Ketch waited for a moment, then when Mary was ready, he helped her stand up. 

“Can I feel?” Lucy asked cautiously.

Mary moved her hands out of the way, and Lucy carefully approached, laying a hand on Mary’s belly. A slow smile spread across her face as she felt the baby moving around, and when it gave a good solid kick, she laughed out loud. “Oh, I miss that…” she said softly after a moment, then withdrew her hand with a sigh. “I guess I should go to bed, too.”

Everyone said goodnight to her, but as she walked out of the room, Mary gave Sam a pointed look, to which all he could do in response was shrug. There was still so much they didn’t know about her.

* * *

Sam had never known a gathering of so much family: chosen family _and_ blood family alike. Eileen arrived the next morning; Jody and Alex on Christmas Eve, with Donna in tow. Claire was off hunting - somewhere - and hadn’t come. It was plain to see that Jody was upset by this, but she refused to discuss it, and kept a smile plastered on her face, focusing instead on the “family” who were there.

Christmas morning he woke up with Eileen in his arms, to the sound of Ollie racing down the hallway to the Christmas tree, shouting about whether Santa had gotten in or not. Dean had made an off-handed joke about the bunker being warded against Santa Claus, not thinking that Ollie would even know what “warded” meant yet, but it turned out the Brits started teaching their legacies at a very young age, and Ollie had been petrified that Santa wouldn’t come. It took Mary nearly an hour to get him settled down and convinced that it would be all right.

So Sam yawned, and prodded Eileen awake. “If you think you get to sleep through this, just because you can’t hear him yelling, you’ve got another thing coming,” he signed to her with a grin. She narrowed sleepy eyes at him and shoved her head under her pillow. Sam laughed and got out of bed, and she peeked out when she felt the movement it caused. “Don’t you want to see what Santa brought you?” he asked her, still grinning.

Eileen had never had a real Christmas either, and he was practically giddy at the thought of being able to spoil her, for the first time in her life. She sat up, stretched and yawned, and Sam pounced back on the bed, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck.

“Okay, okay… I’m getting up!” she said, turning to smile at him. She yawned again, and stood up to get her robe off the back of the desk chair. “You have to be kidding me!” she said, seeing 5:30 am flashing red on the clock. It had been well after 1:00 am when they finally went to bed. “4.5 hours of sleep is a luxury on a hunt, but between jobs I never get up this early.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam answered. “But I guess this is just what normal kids do on Christmas morning. It’s all part of the fun.” W _ho knows? Maybe one day it’ll be our kid dragging us out of bed at the crack of dawn_ , Sam thought. He rarely let himself even consider the possibility, but today, anything seemed possible.

A few minutes later they joined everyone out at the Christmas tree, where Ollie looked about to burst, as his father had told him he couldn’t even open his stocking before everyone got there. As soon as Sam and Eileen entered the room, he dove into his treats with gusto, pulling everything out of the giant stocking Dean had bought for him, looking at it, exclaiming “cool!” and then tossing it to the side to pull out the next gift.

Alex had declared that she wanted to “play Santa” and so while Ollie tore apart the contents of his stocking, she went around the room meticulously handing out stockings to all of the other guests, and they all started to open them up. Happy chatter, and occasional squeals of delight filled the room.

Sam had to take a moment to take it all in. He looked around at everyone, and realized that for many of them, this was the first real Christmas they’d experienced, or in other cases, the first one in many, many years. He felt a bit teary, knowing that they had brought everyone together like this, and given them something so _normal_ , yet something that meant so much to all of them. But just as he was thinking that there was no way he was going to let anyone see him with tears in his eyes, he caught a glimpse of wetness around Dean’s, and smiled to himself.

Despite having such a large group, and such an enormous pile of presents, it didn’t take long for them to devolve into a pile of scrunched up wrapping paper, broken and ripped boxes, and other assorted packaging. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces, and “thank you”s and hugs were being exchanged all around the room. Even Ketch looked slightly less like he’d just bitten down on a lemon than usual.

He couldn’t help but notice that despite Lucy’s smiles and laughter, she looked small and overwhelmed. He overheard her make an excuse about taking her presents to her room because she wanted to try on the clothes that Mary and Ketch had given her, and she grabbed up as much as she could carry and hurried from the room.

Waiting a minute, so as not to be too obvious, he excused himself and walked softly down the hallway towards her bedroom. “Lucy?” he asked, pushing the ever-so-slightly open door open a bit further.  
“Sam?” he heard her ask, but her voice was shaky and sniffly.

He stepped inside, and shut the door behind him. Her gifts were scattered on the floor, and she sat on the bed, her face streaked with tears. A wet spot on the comforter made him suspect she’d been face down moments earlier. “Are you okay?” he asked. He stayed near the door, not wanting to invade further unless invited. After years of living with Dean’s emotional walls, he was used to approaching carefully.

“I’m sorry… I just didn’t want to put a damper on things when everyone is having so much fun,” she said, wiping at a stray tear.

He walked over and sat down beside her. “You’re not putting a damper on anything,” he told her.

“I was sitting there, and I was having fun… _really having fun_. And it suddenly hit me that there I was, enjoying Christmas: opening presents, laughing… and no one from my family was getting to enjoy Christmas. They’re never going to enjoy Christmas again, and it’s all my fault.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.

Sam reached out and pulled her into a hug, letting her cry. He didn’t say anything at all for a few minutes, until she started to calm down. “Your family, they’re in a better place now… they’re at peace.

And they wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for what happened.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s what everyone says to make themselves feel better, or when they don’t know what to say to someone else.”

“That’s true,” he answered, shifting his tactic. “But I’ll tell you something: there isn’t a person in that room who hasn’t experienced some kind of loss. You know why we’re all together? Because every one of us has lost most - or all - of our families. So everyone here - we’re each other’s families now. And they’ll be your family, too, if you’ll let them.”

“Can I tell you something?” she asked him.

He nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

“Half of the nightmares I have - probably more than half - they aren’t about what happened to me with Barbetos; they’re about my family, and what happened to them before they died, the kind of horrible torture…” Her voice caught in her throat and she couldn’t continue.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for any of this. Sometimes life - fate - whatever you want to call it - gives us a cross to bear, and no matter how hard you try, it ends up affecting the people around you. But that doesn’t mean that it’s your fault.”

“But the thing is: it _is_ my fault. I told them to go away. The angels. I got angry and I told them I never wanted to see them, ever again. And so they left, and when they left, so did my family’s protection. If I hadn’t lost it like that, if I hadn’t been so stupid…”

Sam took a deep breath; he wasn’t completely surprised, but he also knew how hard it must be for her to admit that. “We’ve all made mistakes here, and believe me when I say that some of us have made mistakes that could have literally ended the world. So everyone here understands, and no one is going to judge you. And I still believe that your family wouldn’t want you to be miserable for the rest of your life, forcing yourself to live in pain as some kind of penance. Lucy, you’re here for a reason. You may not know what that reason is yet, but I know there’s a reason you’re still here, and that you’re with us now.”

“You don’t think it’s some kind of weird fluke? That I was just born with some weird celestial birth defect?”

He laughed. “No, there’s a lot of weird in this world, but I don’t think that’s part of it. Now, come on back out with everyone. Believe me when I say that you don’t want to miss watching my mom try to cook a Christmas dinner.” He gave her an impish grin, and she started to laugh, too.

“Just let me wash up, okay?” she said.

“You bet.” He stood up to leave her. “And Lucy?”

“Yes?” she asked.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

She gave him a grateful smile.


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone scattered as Christmas ended: Jody and Donna had work to get back to; Alex had to get back to nursing school; Mary, Ketch, and Ollie headed back to London, with promises of a long visit that summer. But Sam had learned long ago never to hold anyone to promises of being there; life was simply too uncertain.

Eileen stayed for a few weeks, but he could tell she was getting antsy to get out on the road, and when Mick called with word of a banshee near Dublin, he had to let her head out. Sam could tell Dean wanted to go, but the desire to have something to hunt was outweighed by the desire not to get on a plane. He himself had just started a new online university course, and decided to sit this one out. Eileen was more than capable of handling it on her own.

Dean finally found a case, and although it was basically a milk run, when Sam turned him down, he asked Cas to come along as his partner. More as company, of course, but Cas didn’t need to know that.

“Can I come?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Dean and Cas answered in unison.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” they replied.

She narrowed her eyes, grumbled, and stomped down the hall to her room.

“You can’t keep her locked up here forever,” Sam told them as he walked out to the garage with them.

“Sam, what are we supposed to do?” Cas asked. “If she goes out into the world, she’s in danger.”

“And if we’re hunting, we can’t be worrying about her; you know that,” Dean added.

“Yeah, I guess. But we have to talk about this when you guys come back. This is no kind of life for anyone.”

“I know,” Cas answered, looking sad. 

Sam gave them that sympathetic look that only he could give. “Just go. We’ll be fine here.”

Dean nodded. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

 

* * *

Sam and Lucy had never had problems getting along, so it wasn’t surprising that their days passed rather peacefully. She was interested in the courses he was taking, and how he could do entire university courses from the safety of the bunker. They talked at length about the course itself, and Sam was surprised to see just how intelligent she was, and how easily she understood what he was talking about.

Dean and Cas had been gone for about two or three days when she approached him with a request he hadn’t been expecting - but should have. They were eating dinner - his turn to cook - and he nearly choked on his vegetarian lasagna when she said simply, “I want you to teach me how to shoot.”

“I’m sorry… what?” he said after he’d finally finished coughing and taken a drink of water. His face was still red, and he wheezed out the words.

“It’s the only way I’m ever going to be safe on my own. I want to learn how to defend myself.”

He took another drink of water and gave her that sad puppy dog look. “Learning to shoot a gun isn’t going to protect you against demons,” he pointed out.

“It’s a start.”

“At best it would slow them down, unless you’re using devil’s trap bullets,” he explained, then went on to give her a general idea of the bullets that his grandfather had designed with Dean when they’d first encountered Abaddon.

“Fine, but I still want to learn, and I want to learn everything else you can teach me. Sam, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life locked away, afraid that Barbetos or some other douchebag Hell spawn is coming after me. If that’s all I have to look forward to, I might as well just kill myself, because that’s no kind of life for anyone.” She was speaking plainly, not whining, and he understood her point completely.

“Cas isn’t going to like it,” Sam pointed out.

“Cas isn’t my father,” she retorted. 

He had no argument for that. And despite his loyalty to Cas, he knew that their current situation wasn’t feasible long-term. 

“Okay, we’ll start tomorrow,” he told her. “But just for now, let’s keep it between us, okay?”

“Deal.”

 

* * *

Lucy was waiting impatiently in the kitchen the next morning when Sam stumbled in, barely awake. He was used to always being the first one up (outside of Cas, of course, who didn’t actually sleep) and finding her there at the crack of dawn startled him.

On the upside, she had already made a pot of coffee, and an egg white omelet for him. “Sit, eat!” she ordered good-naturedly.

“This is early even for me,” he pointed out. “What time did you get up?”

“I haven’t slept,” she replied, without hesitation, as if it were nothing at all.

“At all?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I’ve dozed, I guess, but that’s about it,” she said with a shrug.

“Wait, are you just talking about last night?” He was alarmed now, recognizing something in her that he’d once known in himself.

“No, probably about three days now.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “You mean since Dean and Cas left.”

“Coincidence,” she replied,with her chin jutted out stubbornly.

“Not coincidence,” he told her. “I know that Castiel has been helping you to sleep. I hadn’t even thought about that when he left with Dean.” He thought for a second and frowned. “I can’t believe that Cas was even willing to leave you, knowing that. That’s not like him.”

“I told him I’d be fine; that I wasn’t having nightmares anymore.”

“You lied to him.”

“No, not exactly: I wasn’t having nightmares, because he was doing his… whatever before I ever got to that stage of sleep. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine.”

“Lucy…” he started to say, but she interrupted him.

“Sam, I can take it. You don’t think that those demons holding me hostage for eight years were skilled at sleep deprivation torture? It was one of their favourite games to let me get used to sleeping normally for a few weeks, or a few months, and then suddenly keep me awake for days at a time, or only let me sleep for twenty minutes here or there before startling me awake.”

Sam didn’t answer right away. “I know what it’s like to be tortured, and I also know that once you’re out in the real world, things just _feel_ different. Sleep deprivation feels different. Believe me, I know. And I also know how dangerous it can be to go without sleep for too long. I think I should call Cas, ask him to come home.”

“No! Don’t! Please…” she added. “I know Castiel means well, but I need a break. I’ll drug myself or something, or down a bottle of whiskey tonight, I promise.”

He sighed, but then nodded; he was used to those around him refusing to look after their own needs. “Okay, but forget the gun range until you get some sleep. We don’t need one of us getting shot.”

“Sam, I’m fine,” she said, but she rubbed at her eyes and yawned. “That was…”

“A coincidence?” he asked with a smirk. “Look, no target practice today, but we’ll do something else. How do you feel about Latin?”

“It’s my favourite dead language,” she answered with a grin.

 

* * *

An hour later, she was _not_ so fond of Latin.

“Exorcizamus te… omnis immundus spiritus… omnis satanica protestus…”

“No, it’s potestas, not protest us,” Sam told her.

“I hate this.”

“Try it again,” he insisted. “Believe me, you don’t want to have to second-guess yourself when you’re doing this.”

She grumbled, but started over again. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis… lego my eggo…”

He leaned back in his chair, ridiculously long legs outstretched in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. “If you aren’t going to take this seriously…”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “My head is hurting, but I’m going to get it. I swear I am. Give me a second here…” She took a deep breath, and started again. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledictum…”

“Maledicte.”

Lucy let out a string of swear words, but then started over again, fury in her eyes. “…te rogamus, audi nos!” As she finished, she glanced over at Sam, who nodded, smiling, and let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Good,” Sam said. “Now do it again.”

“Sam?” she asked sweetly. 

“Yeah?”

An evil glint in her eye betrayed her. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, of course, but fuck you!”

He grinned at her, and she started again.

Half an hour later, she had it down perfectly, and could yell it out in record time. “My head hurts,” she told Sam, but he could tell she was pleased with herself.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did,” Sam replied.

“Ha ha… very funny,” she said, shaking her head at his horrible joke.

“At least you get it. Try telling that one to an angel.”

“I can only imagine. But I’m serious: when you guys came to get me, how did you get past the demons? It couldn’t have been just holy water. Were you just yelling the exorcism ritual as you went through?”

Guilt weighed heavily on him as he tried to find the right words to explain. “No, we didn’t do any exorcisms. I… we… Dean and I, we have a knife, and it kills demons. And Castiel and the other angels, they all have angel blades, which also kill demons, as well as angels. It’s not ideal, but sometimes it’s the most effective way.”

“It actually kills them? The demons?” she asked. Her face had hardened.

“Well… yeah,” Sam answered.

“Good,” she said, her voice chilly. But then she paused in thought. “What about the people they’re possessing?”

He didn’t - couldn’t - answer at first. She had no way of knowing just how much he hated that part of the job, and he didn’t know if she’d believe him or not. “They don’t survive it,” he said. He added quickly, “A lot of times, the meatsu… the victims, they turn out to be already dead, and the demon is literally just riding around in their skin, but the truth is that a lot of the time we have no way of knowing that beforehand. And sometimes - too often - the victims die, too.”

“I always wondered about the people… the ones possessed by the demons who were holding me. I felt worse for them than I did for me. I still had control of my own body - mostly. They thought it was hilarious to dangle me from the ceiling, or throw me against a wall, or… you know how it is. But they were just trapped in there… screaming for help with no one listening. Watching while a force they couldn’t control did horrific things.”

“It’s awful,” he told her from experience. “Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And I wish that we could save them all, exorcise the demons and save the victims, too, but sometimes we just can’t. The one thing I can take some comfort from is that we may be killing the victim, but at least we’re also ending their suffering. Still, I wish we could go back to putting more focus on saving them, rather than killing the demons,” he admitted.

They sat in silence for a long time, both lost in thought. Finally Lucy stood up abruptly. “Okay, what’s next?” she asked.

“Homework,” Sam answered. “For me, anyway. For you - Netflix, then sleep. We’ll start again tomorrow if you’ve had some rest.”

“I’m…”

“Don’t say ‘fine’ - just don’t. Because I’m not stupid enough to believe that, and you’re not stupid enough to think that I will. Just get some rest, and I promise you we’ll start again tomorrow.”

She sighed, then smirked slightly. “Fine,” she said, and stuck out her tongue at him. 

He rolled his eyes at her, but he laughed, too.

 

* * *

As Sam had predicted, Castiel was less than impressed to find out that Sam had started training Lucy.

 

_“You’re training her to be a hunter?” he’d thundered. “Have you completely lost your mind?”_

_“Not a hunter,” Sam had protested. “I’m just teaching her to protect herself. Cas, she doesn’t want to be locked up here forever, and can you blame her? She knows that if she’s ever going to be able to have any kind of a life she needs to know how to keep herself safe.”_

_Lucy was in her room when Dean and Cas returned home. She heard the fight and immediately started towards the library._

_“Dean, tell your brother that he’s endangering Lucy’s life!”_

_“Dean, tell Castiel that it’s no kind of life if you’re living as a prisoner!”_

_“Dean,” she’d said as she walked into the library, “tell both of them that she can speak for herself.”_

_All three heads had snapped around at the sound of her voice. She’d glared at them, although Dean had looked relieved to have the focus put on someone else. “Did you ever consider involving me in this discussion about my life?”_

_“Lucy, I’m just looking out for your…” Castiel had started to say._

_“Don’t. Just don’t. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not a little girl anymore, Castiel. You don’t get to make this decision for me.”_

_“I’m not trying to…”_

_“Sam is treating me like a grown woman, who can make her own choices, and is smart enough to know what she can and can’t do. I asked him to help me, and he did.” The look on Castiel’s face had made her feel incredibly guilty, and so she’d adopted a softer tone. “Castiel, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, really I do. But I need to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Because even though this is much nicer than being a prisoner with a bunch of demons, right now, I’m still a prisoner.”_

 

After the argument settled down, she had promised Castiel that she wouldn’t leave until Sam was confident that she’d be able to look after herself. She went back to her room and flopped across the bed before falling asleep. She hadn’t meant to do it, but after several days of minimal sleep (she’d tried her best to sleep like she’d promised Sam, but it had only sort of worked) she just couldn’t stay awake, and she quickly fell into a dream state.

She knew she was dreaming, and she tried to take control of the dream. It had worked somewhat while Castiel had been away, but this time she couldn’t manage it, and visions of her little brother being tortured danced before her eyes. She watched as Barbetos made his lungs constrict in his chest and squeezed all of the air out of them. She watched as he was pinned to the ground, pummeled by invisible forces until his face was a bloody pulp. She watched as Barbetos began to peel the skin from his body, strip by agonizing strip…

She screamed. And screamed. She couldn’t wake up, couldn’t make the scene in front of her eyes go away.

She was going to drown in the torture.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Dean and Cas heard Lucy’s screams and ran for her room at top speed. Castiel tried to reach her to calm her, but she seemed to possess almost unnatural strength as she fought against them.

“Dean, hold her! I can’t get near enough to touch her!”

Dean bit back a sarcastic response as he dodged a blow from her wildly swinging fists. “Lucy!” he yelled. “Time to wake up! It’s just a dream! You’re safe… ow!” He took a blow to his jaw that was clearly painful, but kept trying. “Lucy! Can you hear me? It’s Dean, and Castiel!”

“I just need to get a little bit closer,” Castiel said with a grunt.

Lucy’s eyes popped open. She looked around as if she wasn’t certain where she was, or even if what she was seeing was real. Castiel stood back with a sigh. “Lucy, you’re awake,” he said.

She glanced at Cas, then at Dean. “I… I wasn’t… I’m not…”

“It was a nightmare; it’s over now,” Dean told her. He watched her eyes get their focus back as she saw the bruise forming on his jaw.

“Did I do that?” she asked, looking distressed at the thought. Her voice still sounded far away, and slightly terrified.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Her face fell, and tears filled her eyes. “My brother…” she whispered, before completely breaking down.

Without hesitation, Dean sat down on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms. His shirt got soaked from her tears, but he didn’t flinch.

“I should never have left her,” Cas said to him. “What was I thinking?”

“Cas, it’s not your fault,” Dean said quietly. “It’s no one’s fault except for those douchebag demons.”

Lucy sat up, sniffling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t even know that I’d fallen asleep at first. I didn’t mean to.”

“Luce, you don’t have to apologize for falling asleep,” Dean told her, wiping a stray tear off her cheek. “We’ve all been there… well, maybe not Cas, since he doesn’t sleep, but you know what I mean. Sam went so long without sleeping once that it nearly killed him. I’ve been through times where I couldn’t close my eyes for more than a few minutes at a time, or I’d be dealing with nightmares, too. But it will get better, if you give it time.” 

He turned to Castiel. “Isn’t there anything you can do? Heal her somehow?”

“No…” Lucy started to say, but Castiel spoke over her.

“I can’t, not without wiping her memories, and that could be dangerous in the long run,” he told Dean, whose mouth tightened at the mention of it.

“You are _not_ wiping my memories!” Lucy said, sitting up. “And stop talking about me like I’m not here.”

Both men looked appropriately chastised. “I’m sorry,” said Castiel. Dean didn’t speak, just directed his eyes downward guiltily.

She took a deep breath before speaking again. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, and Dean, I’m sorry about your shirt,” she said, glancing at the wet splotches all over his chest. “I know that having me here isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and I do appreciate you letting me stay, and I appreciate Sam helping me to prepare to be on my own. But please, stop talking about me, or to me, like I’m going to break into a million pieces. I lived through eight years of hell, and I did it on my own. Give me some credit for being a strong person, would you?”

Now Castiel looked especially guilty, and couldn’t meet her eyes. “Castiel,” she said, and reached out for his hand. He still didn’t look up. “Cas, look at me, please?” He slowly lifted his head. “I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past few months, and especially in the last few days, and I need to tell you something: I’m sorry.”

He looked bewildered. “What do you have to be…”

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it. Not even what happened with Danny,” she added, her voice hardening.

Dean looked cautiously over at Cas, but Castiel’s eyes were fixed firmly on Lucy. “Was Danny your brother?” Dean asked.

“No,” she answered. “He was my son.”

 

* * *

Lucy sat at the kitchen table, a mug of tea warming her hands, which had been chilled ever since her most recent nightmare. She had a blanket wrapped around her, trying to stop herself from shaking. She stared into the mug as she spoke. She couldn’t bear to look any of them in the face as she explained.

“When I was little, my parents thought it was cute when I told them about the angels who visited me. They looked at it like I had this big group of imaginary friends. But as I got older, they started telling me that I was too old to be still believing in things that were obviously not real. I kept trying to tell them that it _was_ real; that I really could see and talk to angels.”

She took a sip of the tea before she continued. “I stopped talking about it, but sometimes they would hear me talking to you…” This was directed at Castiel, although she still didn’t look up; he already knew this part, but if she was going to tell her story finally, she was going to tell the whole thing. “…and when they realized I was alone - or at least that I was alone as far as they knew - they thought I was talking to myself, and they got worried. And that, combined with the occasional broken window, or broken speaker, or broken computer monitor, and they decided that I was _deeply troubled_ , and made me go to a shrink. 

“The shrink promised me that no matter what I told her, she would listen, and I made the mistake of assuming that meant she would believe me, too. So I told her the truth, and bought myself a stay in a mental facility.”

She looked up now, feeling stronger, and able to tell her story. “That wasn’t exactly a tropical vacation, so I learned quickly to shut up, to tell them what they wanted to hear, and I got sent home early for good behavior.”

“How old were you?” Dean asked quietly.

“Fourteen. The first time. But when I got home, I tried to ignore them. I tried to tell them that I couldn’t talk to them anymore. I didn’t want to,” she added quickly, turning to Castiel. “I never wanted to do that, but I was so frightened of having to go back to that place.”

“Can’t say that I blame you,” Sam said, thinking back to his brief stint in a mental ward after his Hell wall had been blown down.

“But they wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“We didn’t understand, not really,” Castiel explained, reaching out for her hand. “We knew that we had to protect you, but we weren’t used to humans - none of us were - and we just didn’t understand that we were hurting you by our actions.”

“I know you didn’t. And I understand that now, but I didn’t then. And since I didn’t really want you to go away, it just made it that much harder. So it all started up again, and two years later I ended up back in there. This time it wasn’t so easy to talk my way out of it, and I was gone for a whole year. By then I was angry - angry that my life had been turned upside down so badly. I just wanted so badly to be _normal_. So the very first moment I had by myself - and that wasn’t easy to get with my parents watching my every move - I yelled, and screamed, and told the angels that I hated them. That I never wanted to see any of them again.”

She looked at Cas with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t want to do it, I swear I didn’t! I was just so tired, and angry… and I thought it was the only way. I’m so sorry…”

Lucy started to sob, and Castiel rushed to her side, wrapping her in a hug. “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he whispered to her.

She calmed herself down, determined to continue. “After that, they left. I didn’t see another angel until the day that you rescued me from Barbetos. And I regretted it every day, but I tried to move on with my life. I scraped by to get my GED, and I got a job, since no college wanted me. I was trying to save up enough money to move out on my own when I met Darrell. I never should have dated him, but I was so naive: I thought he really loved me. But when I got pregnant, he bolted. I never saw him again. And my parents kicked me out. I thought about just having an abortion, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I was just being selfish. I was so tired of feeling alone. So I had the baby - my son, Danny - and we lived in a squalid little bachelor apartment, and I lost my job because I couldn’t afford daycare. We ended up on assistance, but I was trying to make it work - really I was!”

“I would never think otherwise,” Castiel told her sincerely.

“Danny was so beautiful - the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. And as far as I could tell, he was normal, in every way. I was so relieved. And even with all of the stress of trying to look after both of us, I was happy.

“The best part was that after about a year, my parents relented, and they let Danny and I move back home. My mom looked after Danny, and I even went back to school. I was going to make something of myself, make my son proud, my parents, too. Everything was starting to seem like it would be okay.”

Sam glanced at Dean before asking, “So what happened?”

The room was quiet; she wasn’t able to answer right away, but she squeezed Castiel’s hand again, and took a deep breath. “He got sick. Pneumonia. My dad had the flu, and Danny picked it up, but because he was so young, he couldn’t fight it off the way that my dad had, and he just got sicker and sicker. I took him to the hospital, and they tried, but nothing worked.”

Her jaw tightened, and her voice took on a hard, cold tone. “I was desperate, and for the first time since I’d told the angels to leave me alone, I prayed. I prayed, and I begged for help, but no one came. And Danny died.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dean said, his voice hoarse. “That was… in 2008?”

“Yes, in May of 2008,” she answered.

Dean flinched.

“I hated you for abandoning me; I hated all of you,” Lucy said to Castiel. “I spent years hating you…”

“Lucy, I’m so sorry… I know it sounds like a lie, but I honestly had no idea any of this had happened to you. I was… busy with another issue…”

“With me, Cas. Just say it: you were too busy getting me out of Hell,” Dean said, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, Lucy. It was my fault.”

Lucy stared at him. “Getting you out of Hell? I’m going to guess that isn’t a metaphor.”

Dean shook his head.

“Dean, you didn’t ask for that, or anything that followed,” Castiel pointed out sternly. “If Heaven hadn’t been so dead set on starting the apocalypse…”

“Then Dean would still be in Hell,” Sam pointed out.

“You have a point,” Castiel replied.

Lucy looked from face to face to face, her own expression one of bewilderment. “And I thought my life was weird _before_ I met you guys,” she said, shaking her head.

“Happy to help!” Dean told her cheerfully. 

She smiled at him, and gave a little laugh, but then her face turned serious again. “I don’t know if it was the anger that I was feeling that drew Barbetos to me, or if it would have happened anyway, but it was only a few months after Danny died that he took me, and… did everything else. I’d gone into a spiral; I didn’t care what happened to me. I thought about killing myself, just to be with Danny again.”

“Lucy…” Castiel said, his eyebrows furrowing together.

“I’m sorry Cas, but it’s the truth. I didn’t want to live without him. I dropped out of school - again - and was drinking, among other things. If Barbetos hadn’t kidnapped me, and refused to let me die, I probably would have died long ago. How’s that for irony? My life saved by a demon?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other with knowing sighs.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think - a _lot_ of time - since I got here. I can’t blame you for Danny’s death anymore. I can’t blame you for the rest of my family being killed. You did what I asked you to do. And even though I obviously don’t know everything on your side of the story, it seems like there was a lot more at stake than I was ever aware of. I hate it: I hate all of it. I wish to God that I could have just had a normal life, oblivious to everything that’s really out there. But if I hadn’t had this gift… or curse… or whatever it is, then I probably never would have gone out with Darrell in the first place. And then I never would have had Danny. No matter how it ended, the one thing I don’t regret is the time that I did have with him. I just miss him. I wish you could have met him, Castiel.”

“I wish I could… Lucy, I don’t spend much time in Heaven anymore. I’m not exactly it’s most beloved celestial being, and it’s only recently that I’ve even been allowed back in at all, but when I do go… would you like me to check up on him? Visit him? I know it isn’t the same as having him here with you, but…”

“You’d do that for me?” she asked in astonishment.

“Of course he would: he’s Cas,” Dean said, smiling at his angel friend.

“Can you take me with you?” she asked.

He shook his head, which drooped a bit; he hated to disappoint her. “No Lucy, I can’t. Humans can’t enter Heaven, not until after death. But I will watch over him for you, and the rest of your family, too, if you want.”

She nodded silently, staring at the table. Moo woke from her nap beside the stove and walked over to her human, nudging Lucy’s hand and purring. Lucy rubbed the kitten’s ears, but her eyes were far away.


End file.
